Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Joy and Grief are companions: When Light Meets Darkness
Tina and Anne explore the complex relationship between joy and grief, examining how these seemingly opposite emotions often coexist and even strengthen each other. They share personal stories of experiencing both simultaneously and discuss strategies for allowing both emotions to breathe.
• Joy and grief create an emotional tug of war that varies in response – sometimes numbing, sometimes pushing, sometimes inspiring
• Past trauma can make it difficult to trust joy, creating a pattern of expecting something bad after experiencing happiness
• Grief can push someone into survival mode, making it harder to let joy in
• Holding onto grief can feel like the last connection to someone we've lost
• Allowing both joy and grief requires giving ourselves permission to feel everything
• Tina's son demonstrates remarkable resilience after a sports injury, showing character by focusing on supporting teammates
• Creating rituals to honor both emotions can help process grief while making space for joy
• Living with chronic grief doesn't mean excluding joy – it's a daily choice to let in both
Remember, there's purpose in the pain and hope in the journey. Joy and grief are not opposites but companions that reflect the full richness of life.
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Tina.
Speaker 2:And I am Anne. Tina, in a recent episode, you told a story about how your grandmother died the day after your son was born. You said the words talk about living with joy and grief, and I'll tell you what it just sparked this thing in me. Living with joy and grief is something that I think that we do all the time. I thought you know that very moment in time when joy and grief meet at the exact same time. It's the very thing that kept me stopped in a moment in time and it stunned me for decades.
Speaker 1:I think I have been stopped in moments of time as well for those very same reasons. But I will say what I have learned over the years of recognizing that joy and grief have to coexist not need to, they have to is that it has relieved me of feeling bad about the good in my life while grieving something hard. So I think it's okay and completely normal to feel both of those emotions, and often, like you said, at the same time, because life is precious and fragile, beautiful and broken, and there's so much of the time where we're going to feel these two very polar opposite but sometimes interconnected feelings.
Speaker 2:You know what I learned very young about the complexity of emotions and how joy and grief are not emotionally exclusive. You know how we talked about life being cyclical. Well, it is, but it is also so enmeshed and the two at times can't be separated, no matter what. What happens when you feel them both at the exact same time?
Speaker 1:That's a good question and for me I think it varies. So let me explain. Sometimes it numbs me, it varies, so let me explain. Sometimes it numbs me, sometimes it pushes me, sometimes it inspires me. It's definitely I would describe it as an emotional tug of war.
Speaker 1:So the joy lifts you up, the grief pulls you down, and sometimes that combination can lead to a deeper sense of emotional processing and sometimes it kind of provides a kind of catharsis, so allowing you to honor both the beauty of the moment and the sadness that comes with it. You know, truly, we're not on this earth for very long. It might seem like it some days, but no truer statement than the days are long, but the years are short. And sometimes for me those feelings of pain and grief coexisting just signal I need to rest, because sometimes that's all I can do to kind of give myself a break from all of it. I would also say I feel like sometimes it is a reminder of really probably more often than not the complexity of human emotions. So where one event or experience can stir multiple feelings at the same time, it also reflects the richness of our lives.
Speaker 1:So I will give you an example that I often feel frequently of joy and grief meeting together.
Speaker 1:So often I see and I'm sure many of you see a mom and her mom, so a mom and a grandma out together at a store or maybe at the zoo, and usually grandkids are in tow. It makes me smile to see the family all together bonding, and it does bring me joy because I see them enjoying it so much. At the same time, inside I want to cry because I yearn for that for myself and for my boys. You know, grandparents are a huge part of children's lives and my mom and I have always been so close, you know we would meet at all these places and go together. And so her disease of Alzheimer's has stolen that from me and from our boys. And on my husband's side some very, very poor decisions by some of his closest family members have forced some strict boundaries. So I constantly feel that tug of war of joy for others who have what I don't, but grief for me and my children who yearn for that type of connection.
Speaker 2:You know, I think one of the things is that we have to give ourselves permission to feel both and I think many times we feel guilty if we feel any kind of joy, like the birth of your baby. At the same time, the family is having this horrific loss and it is giving yourself permission to feel both and it being okay to feel some joy when there's also a loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think allowing yourself permission to feel happy and sad at the same time or, you know, grief and joy at the same time I think that is absolutely key and it does take practice, because I think I don't know even what would make us feel like we can only feel one thing at once, but it really is okay and it's very normal and common to feel multiple different emotions all at the same time. So I think that you know, let me I'm an example person. So let's say that you may have just gotten the job that you've been dreaming of, while a good friend of yours didn't get theirs or just lost theirs. It is completely okay to be happy for yourself and for your family while also feeling sad and grieving for your friend and their family about that news.
Speaker 1:You know that's just I feel like a good example of how it coexists, and I'm sure that the friend who lost their job is equally happy for you. Truthfully, if you're good friends, that is how it works, and so I have just noticed that I think a lot of times people will assume oh, you know, I don't want to say anything. Okay, here you know what? Let me give you another example, and I'm going to talk about this a little in depth. My son has his first major sports injury We'll get into that here a little bit later on in this episode and I commented that my godson played a fantastic game.
Speaker 1:I heard he hit seven three-pointers in his game and my son and my husband, who went to the game and watched it, were so excited. The whole team was so excited, and when I said that to his parents, they didn't really acknowledge that in the text message, almost like they felt bad, saying I know, wasn't it a great game? And it was like it's okay that my kid couldn't play. He was still very much a part of it by watching. And you can be happy for your son and also sad for mine, and I can be happy for your dad for mine, Do you?
Speaker 2:know what I mean. Right, yeah, absolutely yeah. I mean, I think, one of the hardest things I didn't do for myself and I didn't do for myself and I didn't give myself permission to feel the happiness during really difficult times in my life, for example, the loss of my dad. You know I've talked about my dad's death many times on the podcast because it was legit probably the worst time in my entire life and it is when my life stopped as I knew it and it was a death of so many things and it happened at one of the best times of my life. So that was where the contradiction really happened for me, where joy and grief hit me at the exact same time. For me, where joy and grief hit me at the exact same time and I was at this right beat not too long before he passed away. I was one of the top seeds in this meet and it was my birthday and I got called in to dance with the maitre d' and they said you know, and my ann davis is there and she is, uh, this top seat in this for me, and I don't even know why they made a big deal out of it, but they did. It was really kind of a cool thing at this restaurant. And so I had this amazing next few months after that and then bam, he kissed me Good morning the next morning and that was it. Never saw him again.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think many times joy is absolutely mixed with grief. I even feel it when I'm watching a show. Sometimes I immediately start to feel this uneasiness inside myself. It's like one of those things when you just know something really bad is going to happen on a show. That happens sometimes. Well, oftentimes, when I'm watching SVU, you know they're all having a good time at a party or they're all laughing walking down the street or whatever, and you, just you can see it. It's like you know, you know something really bad is going to happen. So you know, I wondered forever why I didn't trust happy times. Well, I think I just proved why. I mean I lived way too much of my life not letting true joy in. After that happened with my dad.
Speaker 1:And I can see I really can, having gone through experiences like that and then researching because this question that you asked and maybe you didn't really ask it, but just this illustration led me to want to kind of dive deeper into what are some reasons why, when someone has a grief-filled life, it can be really, really hard to allow joy to come in, even if we deeply want and need to experience it. So here's what. Here are some of the reasons I came up with. You know, grief can shape a person's worldview and emotional landscape in a way that makes joy feel far away and even not deserved at times. So one of the things I had learned is that grief can push someone into a constant state of survival mode. Oh boy, can I relate to that. And I think many of us can becoming attached to happiness again, thinking that if they get too close to joy they might lose it as well. I've fallen into this trap many times too. You know a fear of love or a fear of joy.
Speaker 2:As soon as I have felt success or happiness, it's almost like I'm waiting for something really bad to happen after yeah.
Speaker 1:One of the other things I came up with is that we feel unworthy of joy because of past experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now here was something else. So grief often connects people to the past, the memories of what was lost, what could have been, and for some that weight can completely overshadow the possibility of joy. I think so many of us have probably also experienced this too as one of the reasons why it's harder to let the joy in. But here's the thing Joy and grief can coexist and they have to. Allowing joy in during a grief filled life requires permission and it requires vulnerability. Allowing joy and during a grief-filled life requires permission and it requires vulnerability. And sometimes the process of opening up to joy is part of the healing journey and, like all things, it can really take time. So I would say just don't rush it, let yourself feel. As I've said before, feeling is healing. You have to feel it to heal it.
Speaker 2:That's, I think you know, and one of the biggest things they always said about me was that I was really stoic and I didn't allow, and I think that I really did feel things. But I think that I just, you know, I shut myself off so much and you're right, I mean it's, if you want to keep the pain out, you end up keeping it all out, and that's really unfortunate. It was a long time before I said I'm going to allow things in, and now I mean I let most things in. If you would know, the day that I had Tina which I kind of think that you do in a way the way that we started before we actually went on air, yeah, I mean I have been all about it. I had every emotion today. So there you go.
Speaker 1:It would have been a funnier podcast if we were recording our little chat beforehand.
Speaker 1:But you know, here's what I think. I think that holding on to grief can feel like the last tether to a person or experience they've lost too. So letting go of that grief to make room for joy might feel like you're forgetting or betraying what's been lost or who is gone. I can really relate to this. With the passing of my beloved dogs it can be just all consuming.
Speaker 1:I lost my best friend, my dog Cooper, four years ago and I can't believe it's been that long already and still to this day it's like I could feel him, I can see him, I remember the ways that he brought me such joy, or just his little nuances, and how awful it was. The hardest goodbye for sure, and for the longest time. And we still haven't been able to get another dog, and we lost our other dog two years ago. So I still haven't been able to quite move forward with another dog, because I feel like I'm betraying Cooper. I feel like, and Georgie, I feel like getting another dog means I'm saying I love this dog now and not them, even though I know that I can love them all.
Speaker 1:It's just really this one really stuck out to me because this is really, what I feel a lot of most consistently is that I'm betraying or that I don't want to forget and I'll never forget that feeling of losing my dog Cooper. The very next morning it was this overwhelming grief that woke me up and I had to cling to every photo that I had of him. So it was a really interesting feeling that I've been expecting because I didn't want to forget, and even when my mom was first diagnosed I started writing down and I actually still do this things that I want to remember you know, fear of pain, exhaustion from constantly processing pain does seem to leave a little less space for lighter or easier emotions like joy to come in.
Speaker 1:But sometimes even, I think society or cultural norms even can make someone feel like they should be grieving for a certain amount of time or should be grieving a certain way, when the truth is there is no time frame and we do all grieve differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know you talked about that with your dogs. I actually have made collages. I take, I print a bunch of pictures of my animals after they pass and then I make a collage and it just, and then I also take some of the pictures and I put them in places where they would lay and things like that, you know, and it just makes me feel like you know they're there. I don't know, but my one cat who passed away in just a few months ago, um, I have his picture right where he would be every single time I would homeschool my son, so it just makes me feel like he's there. And we got another cat 20 days later and it was really hard.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to replace Yoshi and Axel will never replace Yoshi. In fact, I'll talk to Axel about Yoshi a lot of times and I just feel like I just need that connection, though I need to hold an animal. It's just really important to us. But you know, tina, how you have talked about, how you have had to work really hard on your relationship with God and I had to at times and finding that relationship with him again. And I understand that so much because joy and I feel that I've had the joy knocked out of me at times. That joy is related to God and when you think of him you think of how could that have happened? I mean, how could he have let something like this happen?
Speaker 1:sometimes, it's a question that I think about a lot for various situations, not just the personal ones, but even things that go on in the world in general, and so I was just counseling about this a couple weeks ago, and the answer that I've come to and been told is because we live in a broken world. It is not how God wanted it. We live in a broken world. God will help make something good out of the hard, even if we have to wait until heaven for that. Quote reward.
Speaker 2:I mean, I really believe that it's a hard pill to swallow, though, too.
Speaker 2:So many times I hear people say you know, God did this, and it's always like no, he allowed it to happen. But I really believe that there's going to be something that comes out of it that can be used for good. And I know that that's really hard, especially in the world that we live in right now and in some really horrific situations it's hard to see that and sometimes it takes a really long time and it takes a really long time for our hearts to mend and, like we're saying here, for the joy to come back in. But you know, I learned really young that if I'm going to keep the pain out, I'm going to keep the joy out, Like I said earlier, I'm going to keep the joy out, like I said earlier. So everything I've been involved with where it's brought in emotion, I've kept joy at arm's length and sometimes I think that I keep myself from being successful, more successful in things because of that reason alone.
Speaker 1:I think this is the hardest part about these two emotions. It's hard but it is most necessary. We still need to allow joy and pain in, or allow light in the darkness. We have nothing, so we have to keep that hope and allow ourselves to let light in the darkness. It's the whole mindset of after every storm, there's a rainbow of hope or joy comes in the morning, joy being the light after the darkness, and I have to keep walking toward that.
Speaker 2:I have had to learn that grief does not cancel joy. Grief does not cancel joy, and that's been really hard for me to realize. So how, what do you feel about that? Do you think that grief can cancel joy?
Speaker 1:I think it can temporarily stop the joy that you feel, because I would go out on a limb to say there's probably more profound grief that happens in our life than perhaps profound joy. Let me explain. So. If you have someone that you love, okay, you know what. I'll just take my personal situation. So my mom diagnosed at age 59 with early onset Alzheimer's. We are now in the year 2025 and she is now this will be her sixth year into this dreaded disease. That diagnosis shattered me. I've had a stillborn baby. I have lost cousins to addiction Lots of other things that have happened in my life.
Speaker 1:I had been able to handle those fairly well. This one crushed me. So what I'm saying is the grief of this outweighed any joy at the time, because it was such a big hit, it was such a big loss, and so I think in a way, I agree with you Grief shouldn't cancel joy, but I think at times it temporarily can, but that's why it's so important to continue to let that light in. You know, grief is not this one and done feeling. It's ongoing, it is layered. It doesn't just vanish with time or new experiences. Whether the experiences are good or bad, you really still again have to feel it to heal it. So I think you can experience multiple emotions at once, and one does not necessarily overshadow or cancel the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back when I was a journalist there was a man who I knew and actually got to interview for the newspaper and he had lost his child. He was a man of God, he would preach and it got to the point where he no longer did that. But it was hard for him to sing the hymns. He said, you know, it was just it had reached a point where he just couldn't sing those praises and anybody could understand that.
Speaker 1:I think I can relate, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean there's been absolute times in my life where and in fact I've never gone back to a physical church but I do absolutely have had times in my life where I struggled with being well. I mean, I can even have a really rough day and it's like okay, god, thanks, Thanks a lot, you know, but I know it's not his fault, but you know, I mean it can happen where, like what we're talking about here, can just feel so enmeshed the two feelings, feel so enmeshed the two feelings, and so you don't want to sing praises to God at that time when you're having a really difficult time. You know, after my dad passed away, I didn't want to accept my first award and I won right after and they said, you know, they had the award ceremony and I wasn't up there and they called my name to go up and I would not go. And you know what I said. When they said, ann, you need to go up, I said I don't deserve it. I don't even know why I said that.
Speaker 1:Well, that goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's just what grief can do.
Speaker 2:For some reason I felt I didn't deserve joy. I couldn't even accept it. And then after that, I would purposefully lose and I didn't even realize I was doing that. And then, all of a sudden, I started seeing that I was purposefully slowing down. Right before I would hit that wall, I found myself where I would taste success, whatever. That is, whether it be graduating from high school where my aunt died right before graduation and all my family was at her funeral and not at my graduation. And so then, when it came to college, I didn't go to my graduation.
Speaker 2:And well, I mean, I did, but I sat in the audience, I guess you could say, and I watched everybody else go across the stage. It's kind of like this thing where, if you could do this with me, it's kind of like this old saying that in this book that I used to read when I was just having fun, it's called Tomfoolery, so just say that's good or that's bad. After everything that, I say Okay, and maybe a lot of people have already even heard this. So I was in an airplane.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good, I fell out.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's bad.
Speaker 2:But I had a parachute oh that's good. I fell out oh that's bad.
Speaker 1:But I had a parachute. Oh, that's good.
Speaker 2:Well, it didn't open. That's bad. Well, there was a haystack right under me.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:No, there was a pitchfork in the haystack. Oh, that's really bad. Well, I missed the pitchfork.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good.
Speaker 2:I also missed the haystack.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I feel like that's something that goes on in my head about different things.
Speaker 2:I mean, isn't that life though?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's a really good illustration. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, it's a really good illustration.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that we need to be mindful on both emotions and have rituals for honoring both at the same time, if possible. I know my friend Carrie, her dad passed away and we went to the beach. We went to Myrtle Beach and we drank his favorite pop. So you know, I watched. I Love Lucy and Carol Burnett to remember my mom on the day that she passed away. So you see what I mean.
Speaker 2:There was a person in my life that caused me my mom as much pain as she did teach me strength, so it can even come down to something like that where two things can butt up against each other. She was so complex and when I think of this same person, a person who gave me so much pain in my life, she also, at the same time, showed me how strong that a person could be. And so you know, she was one of the strongest people that I think that I ever met. I respected her as a businesswoman. I respected who she was, even when she was dying. She was making phone calls to people canceling their tax appointments because she would do taxes for free for the elderly who couldn't afford it, and she was terminal. She would just say to them. Sorry, I'm not going to be able to do your appointment this year because I'm dying. And it was just, it was the craziest thing. But she also, it was just so much strength and she kept her sense of humor until the very end.
Speaker 2:I can remember when she had days left and I went and I got her mail, I brought it to her and there was this letter from the hospital. I didn't even know, have a clue what it was. She had had a mammogram before she had been diagnosed with blood cancer and she went downhill so quickly that you know we didn't even think about the results of the mammogram before she had been diagnosed with blood cancer. And she went downhill so quickly that you know we didn't even think about the results of the mammogram. And she opened it up and she kind of laughed out loud and I'm like what? And she said well, good news, I don't have breast cancer.
Speaker 1:Wow, I you know, I think you do need a mindset like that, Otherwise you're going to drown. I mean, if you're still here, you still have purpose right. So I think a mindset like that really does help us through tough times. In the example you just gave of your mom's mammogram letter that says she didn't have breast cancer, although she did have blood cancer, I feel like maybe in that moment it just gave her something to feel joy-filled about, even if just for that moment. And so I think that moments matter and they add up, and I believe sometimes it just gives us the courage for just one more day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we laughed so hard when that happened, you know. I mean, do you feel guilty for laughing? I mean, sometimes we enjoyed the moment for what it was. We knew the inevitable was going to happen, but we embraced the humor and how silly that really was. And that can be hard to do when you are facing something so difficult. I can remember when I would feed her, because at the end she wasn't really able to feed herself and we actually would play airplane and you know those kinds of things, and it was sad but it was also humorous at times at the same time. So I had to allow it to just be what it was.
Speaker 1:I agree, because while she's still here, enjoy that time that's left, no matter how little it is, because there's going to be grief that comes once the one you love passes. I believe laughter is an instant vacation and we need laughter. My dad and I say about my mom's diagnosis that you just have to laugh sometimes or you'll cry too much. It's true. It's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's also realizing how sorrow and pain can deepen our relationship with joy. And is that possible when the two come together? And I really do think it is possible.
Speaker 1:I do too. I will tell you another example. I just experienced this again last week, maybe on a little bit of a different level. So our oldest son had his first outdoor baseball practice. He was playing shortstop, looking right into the sun. First baseman threw the ball. Our son put his glove up. He couldn't see the ball because he was looking directly into the sun and boom ball hit him in the face and it fractured his jaw. It fractured his jaw so he went down and I didn't realize, I guess, how bad it was going to end up being. I thought, oh, okay, because he could still move it.
Speaker 1:I thought, oh, it's probably not broken or anything, but the next day he was in so much pain and it was that of his teeth. I didn't like the way it looked around the gums and so that prompted the whole let's get you to the doctor. So when he learned, let me just say I felt really sad for him when he got his okay. So he learned. His AAU basketball season, which just started, is now over. You know, our kid is so active with sports. Six days a week or nights a week he is at sports and he's now told he's got to be sidelined for the next four to six weeks, with the next two weeks being a liquid-only diet. And he's 11 years old.
Speaker 1:So after five hours of doctor appointments that Friday, all I could feel was proud of him, so proud of him. And here's why, after hearing the news and seeing the x-ray that he had a fractured jaw, he took a deep breath. He just went can I still go cheer my teammates on, mom? And I thought isn't that amazing? He was just told this active kid that he's out for four to six weeks. He has to have a liquid diet. And the first thing that came to mind was can he go cheer his teammates on? To which I said absolutely. And my heart went from sadness to joy in an instant, so that was such a perspective shift for me. Well then that weekend he was supposed to have his second AAU basketball tournament and it was Saturday morning and I was downstairs and I heard him ask my husband Dad, could I bring my jersey so that my replacement has something to wear? And I thought isn't that something? That's what youth sports is about, that is what being a team player is all about.
Speaker 1:So incredibly proud of him and honestly, it made me proud of me, and I get choked up a little bit when I think about this, because all of the hard I feel like, all of the hard that my son has watched me face with my mom in particular, and other, you know, grief things that we've had in our life, helps him to see how you handle things with grace and love and tenderness, and he's doing it.
Speaker 1:He's taking notes, if you will. He's seen how to handle it. He's taking notes, if you will. He's seen how to handle it and although it's an injury, it's a physical pain, not maybe a mental pain, if you will. How well he's handled it has blown my mind and it makes me proud of both of us. So we were all grateful, too, that it wasn't worse, that it wasn't his nose it's okay that it wasn't his eye, but the fact that he sighed, he took it in for a few moments and then he picked himself right back up, kept going, wanted to cheer his team on. He's been to every single game since then. Isn't that amazing, ann?
Speaker 2:You know you learn more when you are having the down and out times. You learn about yourself you sure do, and that just shows who he really is. It's not, you know. I always say that I learn more in my failures than my successes, and this is an example of how you learn more when you know it's a really tough situation and you're not out there. You know winning with the boys, but you just figure it out. And he oh my gosh, tina, I mean that just says so much about who he is as a person that he just wants to continue to cheer them on If he can't be out there. He just wants.
Speaker 1:He still wants to be a part of it. See, that's what a team player is all about.
Speaker 2:I love that, and they always pick the quarterback, or they pick whoever based on their leadership abilities, sometimes not just to. You know the captain of the team, and that is somebody who is a great leader, and it's not based on performance and he's just out there wanting everybody to be their best self.
Speaker 2:And that's amazing that he can everybody to be their best self, absolutely, and that's amazing that he can do that at 11 years old. He has got a great future in sports, not just as a player but as a leader, absolutely, absolutely. You also had another thing happen, tina, where you lost your baby. I mean, and I can't think of anything harder. Do you think that there is a timeline for grief, for when you give yourself permission to start letting the joy in? Should we feel guilty for letting that joy in after such an extreme loss or pain?
Speaker 1:So I don't think there's any timeline for grief. It comes in waves for me, still just like the sea. Sometimes it's calm, sometimes it's raging, sometimes you barely even notice it and then sometimes it's just something in between all of that, I do understand feeling guilty about letting joy in, but I can go back to those three weeks after having our stillborn son and how, just a few months prior to that experience, I was at a yoga type of retreat, and I don't believe in happenstance. So while I was there, I learned from a naturalist it was like a yoga naturalist little retreat in the town where I live and he taught us about the rules of three and it really stood out to me Like, of all the things that night this is what stood out to me you can survive only three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food and three months without hope.
Speaker 1:I can still go back to that very moment where I was sitting at the edge of my bed every single day, just lost in my grief and thoughts and just kind of numb, even at times Just so sad. And I remember sitting on the edge of my bed it was just about at the three-week mark of just feeling just so sad and I remembered that rule of three and it right then. And there shifted my perspective and it was like, okay, I know that I have to pick myself back up, because I need to start letting the joy back in, because I believe that the longer you stay in that hard, messy place, the harder it is to dig yourself back out and let the light back in. And so from that moment on I said, okay, I can designate a certain amount of time each day, for as long as I need to, to feel what I need to feel, as long as I need to, to feel what I need to feel. And then I have to move past it. I can write stuff down, but after that I've got to let it go because there's still so much life and so much light and I still have these other beautiful children and this life and you have to push yourself forward.
Speaker 1:So it's times like that, it's times of grief, when I talked earlier about. Sometimes it propels me or pushes me. This is what I mean. It's times like that where it becomes a mental toughness. You really see what you're made out of. You know, when I completed the Kalalau Trail, there are just really poignant times in my life where it has shifted me to do something better or different, because if I don't do it now, I'm going to lose. If you will, I'm going to fall off the edge of the cliff in my hike, or if I stay in this hard, messy place, I'm going to become depressed and bedridden and I'm not going to be able to take care of my family. Who is here? So feel that pain. Care of my family. Who is here? So feel that pain. But give yourself an allotted time, say 15 minutes. Get it all out, cry messy whatever, write it down, scream, kick, whatever it is that you need to do, and then you have to set it aside. You have to because that joy still needs to come in.
Speaker 2:I do know now that there is room for both emotions. We have to make room for both. We just we absolutely have to. I wish that we had a life where there wasn't loss and pain. But we can be mad at Adam and Eve for that one but and my kids will say, you know, darn Adam and Eve, but this is where we are. So I know people who have gone through some therapies. I know someone who is getting ready to start some EMDR therapy because they are not able to let the joy in at all. There is such a blockage that every single time this person feels good happening, they just block it and create bad. So they are trying to go back to the trauma and erase that block with this EMDR and I hope that it works.
Speaker 1:I so hope as well. I've heard so much positive about EMDR therapy and I hope this precious person gets the help that she deserves from it. That's another thing. Changing our perspective to I deserve to be healthy or I deserve to feel joy, I think can help us reframe our mindset and allow those things to take root.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I pray that can happen for her. I pray that people can let joy in during pain. It's like sitting in silence staring at the cardinal that just landed right after somebody passes away and there's a joy that is ignited within, no matter how small. I know a long time ago I had a friend whose child had passed away and that child was very young and there was a butterfly that just kept coming around and you know, it is those things that you just have to hang on to and embrace those beautiful moments in the intense pain. Somehow, somewhere, the pain gets not as intense and the joy grows, and it truly is making room for both in the same spot.
Speaker 1:You know, I love how you've talked about doing things to remember those that we have lost, to passed on before us. Every year, on our stillborn baby's birthday, we do something different either a butterfly release or a balloon release with notes on it. We've done singing and making cake and just singing happy birthday. So, you know, it's in a way it's really heartwarming to remember and be able to celebrate in those ways you know, like with my, when my grandma had passed the day after my son was born. I all I did I remember holding my baby by myself at the hospital was just think of all the good and fun memories that we had together and how I just wished that we would have gotten some more.
Speaker 1:I think that it makes loss a little bit easier when it's clean, where there's nothing left that needed to be said, and so that was a scenario for me with my grandma that I had no regrets, I just missed the fun. And she had such a great sense of humor and I'll never forget when I said, grandma, what's the secret to life? And she said eating chocolate. And so we always eat chocolate, and I think that's. My mom got her love of chocolate from Grandma, and then so did I. But I think that life is often living many different emotions at the same time and I believe the sooner that we embrace that albeit some mixed emotions are harder than others to feel all at once, but the sooner we can embrace those differing emotions, the better off and more healthy we will be.
Speaker 2:You know you just brought a thought up in me that I think a lot of times where grief might be stronger and it might be harder to let go is when there is not as much closure. You know, if there is the closure and it takes me to my friend Carrie again, who she lost her mom, and you know there wasn't a lot of tears, there were tears. I'm not saying that there wasn't a lot of tears, there were tears, I'm not saying that. But she believed that she had done everything, said everything, had the best relationship with her mom when she passed away and she, you know it comes down to the regrets or the I should have right. And you know, when you don't have those kinds of things and you don't have a relationship where there's problems or that you need to have a different kind of a closure than you had. You know, I think it might add some more of those difficulties to be able to in order to let joy in.
Speaker 1:That's exactly my point. Yep, I feel like that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that's really important. Actually I hadn't even really thought about that, but you know, I've gotten better at being able to let it in and I've looked at pictures from the past and I'm this, you know keeper of memories and I'm a very compartmentalized person and I don't like to revisit things often when it happens. It's kind of done. Last week I took this collage that I had made years ago from my childhood and I just had it in a spot in my house that I really didn't look at very often, but they were pictures of me as a child, of course, sitting on my dad, my old house that we had lived in, pictures of my sister before she had been given away to the system, before she had been given away to the system.
Speaker 2:And I took this collage that I had made to help me heal years ago and I put it downstairs front and center by my dad's hutch that he had made before he had passed away and it was kind of like this empowerment moment for me. You know it's not for anybody else, I don't even know if anybody noticed that I put it there. That lives here in my house with me, my family, but it was just for me and it was like you know what. I'm going to take these really mixed pictures with pain and joy and I'm going to put it right there next to my dad's hutch and I have just felt so differently about it. Now it's like I'm claiming it. I don't know. That's kind of what it felt like.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 1:I think timing is everything and I have a digital picture frame of our animals that we have loved and lost. And some days it brings me great, great joy to just sit there and watch as the pictures go by and you relive, just for those moments in time, those memories that you shared together, and of course you want more of them, and it brings comfort to remember. And then there are days where it's so painful for me to see them because I want them so badly to be back here with me that I have to turn it off, and I think both of those scenarios are okay. So I guess what I would say is if you start to feel like it's too much to have that collage by your hutch again, it'd be okay if you took it down and then if you put it back up again. Sometimes you can't help the way you're feeling and you don't know when something will trigger you on any given day. So I hope you'll give yourself grace to move it again if you should need to and if not. More power to you.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a time to be heartbroken and there is a time to get up. There are seasons a time to get up, there are seasons, and no matter what, it's letting that spark of joy to eventually, you know, be ignited again, and I think that that is the message throughout this entire podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree. I was hoping you know, piggybacking off of that that we could end with this thought just as winter gives us time and rest to think about our goals or the things that we want to accomplish, I think spring gives us the motivation, the push to act and reach those goals, gold. So it is Newton's law of physics really An object in motion stays in motion, and it is a good season to allow some healthy change. I read that today somewhere and I summarized it in a nutshell, but I thought it was so perfect for what we were doing today. And then, if I may, I thought that this would be a fitting quote. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection, the fact that you don't merely suffer, but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. That was a CS Lewis quote and I read that and I was like, wow, that's a lot to take in.
Speaker 2:It really is but live each day, thinking about living each day in grief.
Speaker 1:That's really powerful, isn't it? It's something that I hadn't been able to put to words myself, but something that I have found myself doing, you know, with my mom. So when I'm her caretaker on a certain day, or caregiver on a certain day, that day prior, all I think about I'm consumed with the grief for tomorrow. You know that. I know that I will feel by not knowing what that day will bring for her and how it will impact me. So it's, I just thought that was really interesting to think about. So I guess, if you choose to think of that quote, my hope is that you would also choose the thing we said prior to Remember.
Speaker 1:Winter gave us the rest and the time to think about goals, things we want to accomplish, and that could be that you want to improve your mental health. You deserve to have good mental health. So now that it is spring, that is your push to act on and hopefully reach those goals. So remember, the direction you keep going in is the direction you're going to go in. So let that joy let it you know, I just want to let the joy come in.
Speaker 2:I just want to say something before we end, because this is just really hit me. I mean, I didn't realize until just now that and I think a lot of people are here is that you and I both are living in some sort of a constant joy pain situation. We both have that right now. And I think that when you go into each day, knowing and being okay, getting accepting, accepting that you're going to be living this day with grief and also giving yourself permission to have joy at the same exact time and I think that it's chronic, it's like an everyday choice. And when you go back to the first quote that you said about an object in motion stays in motion I think that that is so critical, Because if we choose to just kind of say you know, I can't, I just can't, then we just we stop.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's that choice of just getting up, accepting that it's going to be a day with some grief, giving ourself permission to feel the grief, feel the joy, but keep moving and allow ourselves to be in motion and continue to stay in motion, and just one foot in front of the other sometimes. And that's, you just have to keep moving, you just have to, and sometimes it really does hurt. But as we've often said in the podcast, if you just keep moving, you're just, you're going to get through, Right, and that's the whole point. Is if we don't keep moving in that direction that we need to go. You know we're not going to be able to move through.
Speaker 1:It's imperfect progress. Forward motion is still forward progress, and so it can be little, tiny baby steps, but keep going.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, tina. I mean there was so much good in this podcast today. I really appreciate you and bringing a lot of your tough stories, you know, and a lot of things that have proven that you're really going through some hard times but yet you're also going through and you're living through the pain and bringing in the joy at the same time.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much and I love how much that you share and how much of your heart we get to experience and you've helped me grow so much just by sharing all of the ways and how. You still have so much joy in you and I love to see that.
Speaker 2:Well, I do want to say at the beginning of this podcast, I didn't have a lot of joy. Do want to say at the beginning of this podcast, I didn't have a lot of joy, but now I do. I have a lot more joy because we did this. Do you see how I was in a mood when we started this podcast?
Speaker 1:Is it okay that I liked it?
Speaker 2:I will let our listeners know and I, should you know, put out some bloopers from how I was before we finally started taping this show. But yeah, you know, it's really funny how, if you just sit and you calm and you start talking through everything, I'm in a much different place than I was when we started this podcast. So I'm so glad that we were able to do this today. It was perfect timing.
Speaker 1:Me too. Well, thank you all so much for listening to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. We love that you're listening. Thank you for supporting us and we'll see you back next week.
Speaker 2:You know, listening back to that episode, where the words talk about living with joy and grief were spoken, I paused, literally stopped the audio, and I said those words out loud to myself living with joy and grief. And it hit me right in the core, because that's what we do, isn't it? We live in that space, that tender, messy, beautiful, broken place, where both joy and grief live side by side, and I realized in that moment how long I had let the collision of joy and grief freeze me in a moment in time, like how long it had kept me in that moment, and I honestly didn't know how to leave. But here's the truth Joy and grief are not opposites, they are companions. They show up, often uninvited, at the exact same time A birth and a death, a celebration and a loss, a laugh in the middle of mourning, a tear in the middle of a smile. It's okay to feel both. In fact, it's human, it's real and it's incredibly brave. We've shared so many stories today of love, loss, resilience from a fractured jaw, a stillborn baby which is so sad, the cardinal on the windowsill after a loved one passes, or holding on to photos of letting go of pain, of plugging in and unplugging digital frames based on the heart's capacity that day in order to be able to see them.
Speaker 2:And maybe that's the most important reminder of all, you are allowed to feel joy while grieving. You are allowed to laugh through your tears, you are allowed to let light in even when the darkness still lingers. That's not betrayal, that's healing and actually it's part of the grieving. There's no timeline for this. There's no perfect roadmap. There are just moments, tiny sacred moments, where you choose to let something good in again a spark, a memory, a smile, a deep breath, a conversation. You know, if you've lost someone or something precious and you're still grieving, let me tell you something you are not broken because you feel joy. You're honoring what was lost by continuing to live, because isn't that, if it's a person that you've lost, isn't that what they would have wanted? Because, like we said, joy doesn't cancel grief and grief doesn't cancel joy. They can and they do coexist. So today, wherever you are in your journey, let that spark in, let it ignite something small and let that small thing become your hope. Because, as we've shared here, after the storm there's always a rainbow and joy comes in the morning.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sitting with us in this space where joy and grief meet together. You're not alone here. I decided to come on and just share this with you. Just share some last thoughts. Thank you so much for listening and watching and being a part of Real Talk with Tina and Anne, because you know this is a mission for us. This is something that we like to do to genuinely reach out to others because of the pain that we've had and we've endured, and we want to be able to use that pain in order to help other people, and so we really love each and every one of you, and thank you so much for your support, as we've continually grown throughout the last two and a half years, and we're just going to keep doing this. So thank you again From Real Talk with Tina and Anne. We love you. Remember, there's purpose in the pain and there's hope in the journey. We will see you next time.
