The Grief Expert Who Discovered a Sixth Stage | David Kessler

Grief expert and bestselling author David Kessler, longtime collaborator of psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and author of Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, joins Lewis Howes to explain the sixth stage of grief, unattended grief, trigger work, and the Tender Hearts online grief support groups offered through Grief.com and AboutGrief.com.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere I go, airports, events, walking down the street, people stop me and say, Louis, this show got me through one of the hardest seasons of my life. And it's one of the coolest things when people come up to me. So if you see me, please come up and say hi and let me know how this show, The School of Greatness, has impacted you. It lights me up because our mission at Greatness Media is to impact 100 million lives every single week. So if today's conversation hits home for you, do me a favor and push the follow button right now. It means that the next conversation will be delivered to you and we'll find you exactly when you need it. Again, thank you so much for being here and listening to The School of Greatness. Make sure to follow right now to stay up to date on the latest and greatest.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  If you grieve well, you live well. Grief is about change. Those of us who can manage change well actually are happier in life. If you get stuck in the breakup, the job loss, whatever it is, you're not going to do well.

• 1:03Lewis Howes?

  He's one of the world's foremost grief experts and bestselling author, who has helped millions of people learn how to heal after loss. Please welcome David Kessler.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Grief must be witnessed.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  It means if you're in grief, you need another person to go, that job mental loss. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

• 1:22Lewis Howes?

  Why does that need to happen?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Because we need to have our pain and our love and our attachment witnessed in someone else's eyes.

• 1:31Lewis Howes?

  A lot of people have heard about the five stages of grief. You've added a sixth stage of grief. Can you briefly share what these six stages of grief is?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:41Lewis Howes?

  So.

• 1:45Lewis Howes?

  A lot of people have heard about the five stages of grief. If they've gone through something and they've studied this, you've added a sixth stage of grief. Can you briefly share what these six stages of grief is?

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Sure. So Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who did hospice and grief and loss, she's the one who came up with them. And what was amazing that she did is she didn't invent something, she observed something in people. And she was like, you know, the sun always comes up in the east, it sets in the west. People seem to go through this denial, I can't believe this is happening. Anger, pissed about this, bargaining, if only I had done that, if only we had tried this. Then depression, the sadness, and acceptance.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  And people thought like, there's one big acceptance, there's a million acceptances that we're always going through. So those are the stages. And what's remarkable is they work when someone dies, but they work in a breakup, divorce, job loss, big changes. In fact, I always define grief as a change we didn't want. It's interesting, you know, sometimes I'll be talking to someone and they know like, I maybe have did a lecture at Coca-Cola or General Mills or Dow Jones. And they're like, why are you lecturing to grief with them? Do they have a lot of grief?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  And I'm like, no, companies want to learn how to manage change. Grief is about change. Those of us who can manage change well actually are happier in life. So I always want people to know, if you grieve well, you live well. If you get stuck in the breakup, the job loss, whatever it is, you're not going to do well. So I was really honored to work with Kubler Ross. She taught me and I was able to do a couple of books with her and adapt her stages of dying to stages of grief formally with her.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  And about nine years ago, I thought my grief was long behind me and my younger son, David, died unexpectedly. And as brutal as you would imagine, I was on the floor. And I remember back then that at some point I thought, I have to find a way through this, what do I do for other people?

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  Now, you're the grief expert. You've written books about it.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Helped a million bereaved parents.

• 4:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  And now I'm in it, in the epicenter.

• 4:42Lewis Howes?

  Now, how, how long were you in it? Were you, and did you beat yourself up for being like, I'm the expert. Why am I still feeling anger, sadness when I know these steps? I've taught this for years and yet I'm still in this?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  There was an observer in me. And there were moments that were really, those two got separated. Like, I used to tell people, go see a counselor, go to a grief group. I handed that out like candy at Halloween. When I had to go to a grief group, it took me three times. I was like, there's traffic, there's always traffic in LA. I can't find a parking place. Finally, the third time, I went into this grief group and I was like, grief group, I shouldn't be here. And, which is a feeling we have in grief, this shouldn't be happening to me.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And literally, I had to sit down in a chair with these other parents with a table of books. And my books were on that table.

• 5:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  And I couldn't say, oh, that's me, I'm that author. I had to be the father that buried a child. So brutal, brutal, brutal. And I eventually would notice, yep, you're in denial, yep, you're trying. And then I thought, I gotta accept this someday. And that wasn't enough. I'm like, it can't end with acceptance. I need more.

• 6:12Lewis Howes?

  Because if you just accept something, then what?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Well, it felt, it felt like a low baseline. All right, I accepted it.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, life sucks, I accept it.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Life sucks.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  This happened.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  My life sucks. And you know, there were a lot of people who were like, this shouldn't have happened to you. And it's like, why, well, why not me? Like, I'm not exempt from human life. And so it was really, I looked at this and I was like, I know I've been teaching for years, no matter what you've been through, you can find joy and happiness again. Even though I couldn't see it when I was in it, people would remind me. And I eventually thought about, I wanna, there has to be more. Could it be meaning?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  And I went back and read Viktor Frankl's book, A Man's Search for Meaning. And meaning didn't always jive with people in grief because it would be like, there's no meaning in a horrible death, there's no meaning in a murder, there's no meaning in the. And I realized, and the work became to understand, the meaning is not in the horrible event. The meaning is in us. Who do we become after the horrible event? And I also thought back to my son, David, who loved my work. And he would not have wanted his death to constrict it. And I thought, then I have to expand it.

• 7:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow. If you could go back and think about who were you before his death? And who are you now after his death? What is the meaning you've given that in your life?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  I appreciate it even more, life. I get this, how temporary this is even more. How we don't live and how, how we don't know who's going to live and who's going to die, what's going to happen. You know, we've talked about control. I had to manage a new layer of digging out some control to realize, oh, I have no control. I have illusions of control, but I have no control. No control. And what do I have control over? Oh, how I experience this moment. How I experience today, what I say yes to, what I say no to.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Then it all shifts, then I have real power to make the most of my life. And I try to be like evidence for people when, you know, I hear the horrific things they've gone through. I get it and I have hope for you. And they'll go, I don't. And I go, that's all right, I'll hold hope until you can find it.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How long did it take for you to find hope?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  I had a moment like at Christmas, I was with my older son at my son's grave. And he said.

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  The first Christmas after?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  First Christmas after. And he said to me.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  We are never doing the holidays again.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  And I had to go. I feel that way too. But I said. You're still alive and I'm still alive and this Christmas is not happening. Next Christmas might not happen. Next Hanukkah, all those might not happen, but I said, you know. I would hate to think you and I don't get any more holidays together. So I said, we're gonna have to work on this.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Well.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  What was the step that you were? In the most, was it anger, bargaining, depression, denial, like?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  A lot of bargaining. A lot of what ifs.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  Done this differently.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yep, what ifs and if onlys.

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  What does that do to someone when they're going through a grief? It doesn't have to be a loss of a person in their life.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  It could be a divorce, it could be a break, it could be a job loss.

• 10:24Lewis Howes?

  What does bargaining do? Saying, oh, if I just would have not gone here that day a year ago, if I would have done this decision differently, or if I would have whatever, what does bargaining do to someone when they ruminate on it consistently after loss?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  It is the mind's way, and I wanted to put a caveat on this. We have to do that early on. We're gonna bargain, it's okay, allow yourself to bargain. But eventually, it is the mind's way of avoiding reality. It is. The mind would always be guilty, then helpless.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I'd rather have a Rubik's Cube going, they shouldn't have fired me, I shouldn't have been let go, duh, duh, duh, duh, than to sit with those feelings and get my resume together and get back out there.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  This, my mind doesn't wanna live in a world that, wait a minute, I can be for years at a company and be fired? Wait a minute, we can be happy and then you want a divorce? Wait, wait, everything's good and then someone dies? Who wants to live in that world? None of us. But our minds trying to regulate our nervous system.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  So you were in bargaining phase a lot?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  I still go back and visit from time to time.

• 11:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:46Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like you got to a place of, of meaning?

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Began to do the dance when I was working on the book and the Kubler Ross family were saying, we'll allow you to, call it the sixth stage. Probably around two years, I was getting glimpses of I'm going back to life.

• 12:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Slowly, slowly.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  How does someone find the meaning in loss?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Well, to realize it's not in it, it's in us after the loss.

• 12:19Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 12:19Speaker 01

  And it means things like, what is there to find after the loss? It could be. You realize the brevity of life, like this isn't forever, let me make the most of this. It could be, I wanna make sure no one dies that way, I wanna create change. It could be, I need to find some gratitude for this. It could, you know, it's a million things that we can personalize to the loss, like one of the things I remember, and a lot of people have said this experience that like. My gosh, my son's funeral was packed, he did not know how loved he was.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Let me try to take that in now. Let me help other people feel loved now. I don't wanna express my love for my friends at their funeral, I want them to know today. Things like that change us.

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think it's so hard for people to express how they feel about their friends, family and loved ones? When they're alive, rather than when they pass?

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Here's the thing. We can't order feelings. We can't go, alright, I wanna take love in, but I'm gonna suppress all these feelings. You're either a yes or a no to your feelings. You don't get to order them like you're at the restaurant. So. If we want love, we're gonna have to allow everything else in. I'll give you a quick one on this, that.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  When I was before all my, most of my work was online, I was going from hotel meeting room to hotel meeting room. There'd be, you know, two, three hundred people in my room, next door would be the realtors, down the hall would be the nurses. After we were done after doing a day, the staff would go, hey, what were you teaching? And I go, why do you ask? And they'd go, your group was laughing the most. And I would go, grief? And they would go, what kind of grief? And I go, yeah, that kind of grief. What, it's hard for people to understand, the people in my room. Cried harder. But laughed harder.

• 14:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Grief and feelings and allowing the range, all the colors of our feelings expands our life. Like, I didn't think I'd be here talking to you about, oh, like loving people more and telling them. But it expands. And it's a fuller life.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  There's something you said, like if you're unwilling to. Experience the grief, then you're unwilling to like fully love deeper.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely, to, you know, to live life fully. You can't do one without the other.

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  Can someone fully experience love at the greatest levels if they're unwilling to go through grief at the deepest level?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Grief and love are a package deal this lifetime.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  You gotta take both.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  And if, if I play safe. It's not as much joy. And plenty of people play safe, I've played safe, I'm sure you, we've all played safe. And I don't wanna play safe anymore. I mean, to me, playing safe is the. Scariest thing I could do. What a waste of life.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  You know? My gosh, we always wanna like play your full game. Don't leave anything behind. And I think, you know, being, cause I also work with people. Who are dying and being at end of life, I mean. People have lots of regrets. Around not living fully and how scared they were.

• 16:11Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  And it becomes an illusion. You know, we don't regret the things. We did often, we regret the things we didn't do.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything you regret right now?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Not in the moment.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Not in the moment.

• 16:25Lewis Howes?

  Or in the last, I guess, ten years, do you feel like it's? Not forced you, but allowed you to say, I'm gonna really risk and go for it, whatever it is, saying what I wanna say.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  It is a constant process. It is constant to play the bigger move. That's hard to play the bigger move constantly.

• 16:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  But it's, it's also the powerful move.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  When someone. Has experienced grief, and it doesn't have to be a loss of life.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:55Lewis Howes?

  But they've experienced a change that was unwanted.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  And then they've ruminated on that. Um, change happening or been frustrated on that change for, let's say, a year or a couple of years. They continue to be frustrated about the person, the event, the experience that happened that they did not want to happen.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  What are they robbing by doing that in their relationship to other people? By staying stuck in the grief and not transforming it? What are they stealing within relationship to other people?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Grief, whatever that change is we didn't want, takes us off one road and puts us on another. And many times, we'd rather just stand there quietly on the new road. Because the unfamiliar road is too hard. And it does rob us of the possibility of living again. And it's, it becomes that playing small. And, uh, you know, I think about the energy that's spent. You know, people go, I'm in a void, I have people in my life, in my family, you know? One person in my life has turned that frown upside down, you know, like, let's not talk about anything negative.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  I see the energy. Like, I think of our feelings as like, if you've got a little balloon. And you just need to push it down. The air comes out slowly, but imagine a big beach ball that you're holding underwater constantly. Like, it takes a lot of energy to not feel your feelings. And here's the thing I tell people.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Feelings aren't facts. It's just data. It's just information. You have a feeling. Let it pass. And I think something folks don't understand about feelings is we're the first generation that has the luxury of a feeling on a feeling.

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  That means I'm angry. Oh, but I shouldn't be angry. Oh, I'm sad. Oh, but I don't have it like people overseas have it. And we have all these half-felt feelings that we stopped ourself from feeling the anger, the sadness. And we live with this bag of unfelt feelings.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  It's like guilt of having the feelings because someone else has it worse or?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Has it worse. And so if we just allow a feeling, it's going to pass. Now, the illusion that feelings have, especially around loss and change and those big things, is when you're in a bad feeling, it's like there's a voice that goes, this feeling's forever. This loneliness, this pain is forever.

• 19:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I felt that, especially in like my teens and twenties.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  I felt like

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 19:56Lewis Howes?

  This is never going away.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  I felt that, like in my childhood, I am damaged forever. And to understand, no feeling is final. No feeling is forever. Your feelings are always going to change. And sometimes what we need is a little nudge to move again. That's why I love doing grief groups online. We find ourselves in each other's stories. You know? And I think the other thing is so many people are all about these days. And you know, one of my lines that I tell people, it's so, you know, connected to me

• 20:40Speaker 01

  is grief must be witnessed.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  It means if you're in grief, you need another person to go, that job meant a lot. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

• 20:52Lewis Howes?

  Why does that need to happen?

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Because we need to have our pain and our love and our attachment witnessed in someone else's eyes. Grief is a severance. It is a separation and connection heals it. Like everything we know, what helps grief and trauma is connection. So part one is I say to people, oof, that's horrible. I see the pain. You love that job. You, you loved your wife. It's so unfair. That's so, it shouldn't have betrayed you. You know, I need to witness, folks. We're a little bit getting really good on the witnessing and leaving people there.

• 21:38Lewis Howes?

  What's the next step after the witnessing?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  The next step is for me to witness your capacity. That sucks what you, I mean, I can't believe they find, that sucks. I know you though. I know you can turn this around. You might not see it right now, but I know who you are. And I witness your capacity. I need to witness your pain and witness your capacity for turning it around. We need that.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  From my personal experience, I head on to a lot of different grief for many years, but one was around sexual abuse.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  And I've spoken about it many times on this show, but for 25 years, I didn't tell anyone about the experience of being sexually abused when I was a kid. And when I finally did, it was in a group setting. And I didn't know I was going to open up about this, but I felt almost inspired, like if, if I don't do this now, I'll probably continue to carry this anger and resentment and pain around this thing that I really didn't know was kind of running my nervous system for so long. And I did it in a group setting with maybe like 40 or 50 people in the room. And it was an emotional intelligence workshop that had kind of that context of allowing for that to happen. I didn't go there with that intention of like, oh, I have grief, but it was more around growth.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  And I don't think I would, I would have been able to process that without others witnessing that experience where I felt safe

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:14Lewis Howes?

  in the witnessing, right? And it really unlocked the ability for me to start healing that unresolved grief, which didn't happen overnight. It took a process and there was ups and downs and a mess in it all.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  In those years before you talked about it, did you think about it once?

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Almost daily.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Daily?

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  For like 25 years, almost daily. I mean, or I'd stuff it away.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  How much energy, looking back now, did it take to manage that?

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  So much.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  So much energy.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  Wasted.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Wasted. And I also believe nothing's wasted. So, but I understand that concept. And the moment you, my guess is someone before you spoke and you were like, oh, if they can say that, ooh, I could say that one thing I haven't thought about saying.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  They didn't talk about sexual abuse, but people were opening up. And I was like, wow, they've been through some stuff and wow, they've been through some stuff.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Oh, this might be safe. We find ourselves in each other's stories. And we find our healing in each other's stories. So one more piece on this. All grief does not have trauma, but all trauma has grief. So, you know, our 100-year-old grandfather who's had a great life, it's grief.

• 24:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Pure grief. Sexual abuse that you've had, sexual abuse that I've had, there's trauma and grief. And we're a society that knows how to talk about the trauma, but we also have to remember, wait a minute, there were years lost. There was an innocence.

• 24:55Lewis Howes?

  Gone.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  There was an innocent childhood. We deserve this lifetime. We're never getting. And we have to do a little grief work on that.

• 25:05Lewis Howes?

  And when you're an adult, it's hard to reconcile with that.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  You're like, huh, my whole childhood gone in some ways, you know?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And that is recognizing that is the beginning of the grieving process. We gotta be willing to face it ourselves.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  That was probably the scariest moment of my life was speaking it out loud, speaking in front of people that I'd, you know, not strangers, but essentially I'd just met it for a few days. And in some ways it reminded me, it was easier that it was easier that there wasn't like friends and family because I, part of it was, oh, if my friends or family knew this about me, no one would love me.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  And, and they have so much energy around you.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's interesting, when my son died and I had to eventually go back to work and I had to think about which lecture is going to be my first back. I wanted something that I felt I could manage. My first lecture back was to the LAPD.

• 26:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  I wanted people who were just going to sort of be there, but like they're not going to therapize me. They're not going to go into like, I just needed to like have that first talk and say it. You know, so it's interesting how sometimes the strangers don't have all the baggage that our loved ones do.

• 26:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it was interesting. I finally got the courage to tell friends and family. And thank goodness, everyone received it well.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  And had the capacity to experience it and, and share that sadness for the experience or the sadness for my, you know, the little boy in me that had this experience. And in some ways, it felt like it, it made the connection stronger with each one of those individuals, which I was grateful for. But I also have heard people say that they've shared grief or trauma tied with grief to friends, family, loved ones, and it was not received well. So what happens if someone shares their grief with someone with it says, ah, suck it up or well, it's tough that that happened, but move on or whatever they did, you know? Maybe they didn't have the tools or the skills to communicate effectively because they

• 27:27Lewis Howes?

  are repressing their grief or trauma or something. Or it's just not in their capacity. But what happens when you open up to someone who doesn't receive your grief well and it almost traumatizes you more?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  That's why there's been grief groups since the beginning of time because we need to find those people who know. The truth is.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Look, most people in grief could look back and go, oh, I didn't, I didn't do this as well as I could have with someone before I knew. Once grief comes to you, you, you understand it. But you know, if you're having in a horrible divorce and all your happily married friends, they're not going to get it. Your divorce friends might get it. So, one, we have to pick our audience. And the thing is, I love that line about, no matter how, like, people always want, I got, my sister's got to get it. My spouse has to get it. My, help me have the right words to convince them of the pain I'm in. And I often say that line about, no matter how many times you go up and down the aisle

• 28:33Speaker 01

  of a hardware store, you're never finding milk. You're not changing your sister.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  So let's transplant you to a place with people you can talk about it. It's a grief illiterate world. It's a grief illiterate world.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  No, it's until you've gone through it and you say, I'm going to learn about it. And a lot of people have gone through it, don't learn about it. They stuff it.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Or get stuck in it.

• 28:57Lewis Howes?

  They get stuck in it. They don't want to do the work to heal or transform it because in some ways it's scary, it's hard, it's unfamiliar, there's some sense of control and feeling angry or resentment or whatever it is.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  And it's feelings that are bigger than us and feel like they will take us out of control. Or we're going to start crying, you know, and I tell people who say to me, if I start crying, I'll never stop. I'll go, I've been with thousands of people, everyone stops crying.

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  You get tired at some point.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Right. Or, you know, men who goes, I can't cry, it's not, and I'm like, really? I've been, I worked at nine 11, I was there with firemen who were digging for their brothers, crying, you, you want me to tell them they're not being manly? Like, dude, we've got to redefine manhood here.

• 29:44Lewis Howes?

  When someone says they don't have the ability to cry, what do they really say?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  I'm judging my feelings. People will say to me, I can't cry. And I go, you can't cry or you're judging yourself for not crying? The thing is, if we're judging ourselves about we should be crying, and this happens all the time, I'll say, you're judging your feelings. And people go, no, I'm not. And I'll go, well, but you're telling me you should be crying, which means you're not okay feeling what you're feeling now. There's a should here, which means you got a judgment. Judgment demands punishment. You're going to punish yourself for others and you're clearly not going to cry. We have to get to a point where we go, you know what? I'm going to accept my feelings.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  If I cry, I cry. If I don't, I don't. Let me just accept. It's a weird paradox that to feel your feelings, you have to accept them and then you begin to move through them.

• 30:48Lewis Howes?

  If someone says, I haven't cried in years, what is it that they're blocking?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  I would say to them, um, I think that wisdom is in you. And I think you might want to put some effort into getting curious about it versus judgmental. What would it look like if you weren't blocked? What, what would your life look like if it wasn't being blocked? What, what are the obstacles that's keeping you that way? And a lot of us get this learned helplessness that we're like, there's no way out. And that's when we need someone to go, yes, there is, give, give me your hand. Yes, there is, we're going to look. I can't take you all the way, but I can open the door and show you some stuff.

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  Because most people don't have the tools to navigate grief well, it seems like they haven't learned it at an early stage, or they weren't taught it, or they didn't learn how to discover it. You know, as a, as a parent to twin girls now.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  How could I demonstrate how to move through grief when they're, you know, five years old and someone doesn't want to play with them or something and they feel like they had a friend that doesn't want to hang out with them or whatever it is? How can I teach it early with something small so that they understand how to navigate it through life's challenges when they're older?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Think of what we said around feelings. So just treat it as their feelings. What mistakes do we do? We, you know, I can't believe they don't want to play with me. And your daughter starts crying and your other daughter's fine. What do we say? You should be more like her, shutting down the feelings. Or that friend's not worth it, don't have that feeling. Or that's a silly thing to, shaming them. Instead, going back to the witnessing, wow, it is really sad when someone doesn't want to play with us. Then going to the capacity, you know, it's sad and I bet we could still have some fun this afternoon. Knowing you and me, we could have some fun.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  But don't shut those feelings down, just allow them.

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  So how do people learn to teach how to communicate your feelings when a lot of people feel like feelings are bad? Or they don't want to deal with the feelings of another person? Or it's hard for them to watch someone cry or scream or whatever it might be? How do we teach that? Specifically in men, who I think have never been taught how to navigate feelings.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Listen, I got into this work because my mother died when I was young, there was a horrible shooting and the only advice I got was in the hallway, the stairwell of the hospital, someone said to me, be strong.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  That was it?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  That was it, which is no feelings, take care of everyone.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Suck it up.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Suck it up, just another version of suck it up. And the problem is, like, let's fast forward to what it's like being with people who are dying. What do we do when we suck it up? If the half, the other half is suck it up, be productive, go do something? Then we get to our deathbed and go, oh, I did.

• 34:02Lewis Howes?

  I performed.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  I did, I performed, but I didn't, I missed the love. I missed the presence. I mean, the thing is, you know, you and I could have a completely inauthentic discussion. Like earlier, we didn't have an inauthentic discussion, we had an authentic discussion and we talked about real things. That didn't separate us, I hope it made us feel more comfortable. And that's an illusion that those feelings are going to ruin something. Vulnerability, you know, Brene Brown, who's like, just, she's been amazing with this, just you realize vulnerability is a superpower.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  It's a superpower.

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  You've worked with a lot of different individuals over many years. From your clinical perspective, who has a harder time truly expressing their feelings? Men or women?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Men.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  And a lot of times when I work with men, uh, men who aren't comfortable don't know how to do this. They don't know how to do face to face. And a lot of times, our spouses and people will like sit men down and go, which is like the worst thing. When I'm working with men and they're don't traffic well in feelings, I'm like, let's take a walk. Men do better sometimes shoulder to shoulder talking.

• 35:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Not.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  Staring into their souls.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Right. How do you feel about it? You know? It's like, no, I don't want to hear what you think, I want to know what you feel. Well, if you can't go there, I'll hear what you think. Your thinking's going to reveal your feelings. It's fine.

• 35:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  I got to meet people where they are. I mean, we all, you know, one of the things that I say to people so much, friends, colleagues, whenever we're in disagreements with the world and the people around us, I'm like, you're in confrontation, argument, war with who you think they should be. If you take all these tools and realize that's what you're projecting, just see them, meet them for who they are.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  What if they're not happy with who they are?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Then we've got some power to do something. Because I'll tell you, we have the power to stay, we have the power to go, we don't have the power to change other people. I've tried, I've spent a life trying.

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  They don't change and we get frustrated. Doesn't mean we can't encourage. There's little things we can do. I'm going to get further with people. If I say, I really like what you did and name the things you do well versus naming the things you don't do well.

• 37:03Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  That's going to help the other person grow. But I've never nagged anyone into change.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Or judged them into change.

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  That's not going to work.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Not working, not working.

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  They're not going to be happy.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Got to meet them where they are.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  You talk about this idea of unattended grief, grief that people carry around without realizing it.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Can you explain how that shows up in someone's daily life and how it impacts their relationships or their ability to succeed?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  We could say, look at really famous people, look at successful people, look at people in your family who have had a horrible acting out situation. Any celebrity, sports figure, like they just act as something, oh, I don't understand with all their money, how'd they do that? Unattended grief and feelings. Yes, they blew up in that moment because they couldn't manage the bigness of what was going on.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Instead of learning how to manage it in all these small moments.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  We see it all the time. People self sabotage in the big ways because they don't learn how to just deal with the disappointments, the changes, the griefs of everyday life. Like the question you asked about your daughters is there's people who we've all seen them implode, who never asked that question and no one asked that question about them. They weren't, their feelings weren't attended to.

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  When people say to me like, why should I feel these feelings? Well, look at what happens to the people who don't. We turn on the TV. They'll, they're about to blow. That's what happens. And it's devastating that you see really good people damage their careers and their lives, or use substances or all the other things we do because we don't know how to manage our feelings.

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  How does someone know if they have unattended grief?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Your actions become automatic. I don't know why I reacted that way. I don't know why I'm so sad. I don't know why I'm so angry. Like people don't understand anger is often grief. You know, I talk about anger is pain's bodyguard. The anger shows up, but it's about the pain it's protecting. And so a lot of time that pain is unattended grief.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation, and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. That was the trigger for me when I, it got me to a place to, to go to this workshop and start opening up. It's because I felt like for a few years I was getting so easily triggered by the littlest things

• 40:16Lewis Howes?

  that would make me angry. And it would just get bigger and bigger kind of like reactions that were automatic. Like I wasn't even able to stop myself from reacting. Until afterwards, I was like, what am I doing? You know, it's just like, who am I? Why am I reacting this way? And my best friend, Matt, who's actually here, we, I got in a basketball fight in West Hollywood, on the mean streets of West Hollywood, you know, next to Beverly, next to Beverly Hills. And I was getting in multiple like altercations on the basketball court. Probably weekly for like months until I got in an actual fistfight. And the guy ended up being okay after all of it or whatever.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  But it was a big wake up call where my friend Matt was like, I don't want to hang out with you anymore. You keep reacting in this way.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:05Lewis Howes?

  And he was at a lot of these games with me. There was nothing on the line. There was no big stakes. These were just friendly pickup games. But I was getting easily triggered by the littlest things. And that's when I was like, oh, if my best friend is calling me out on this and doesn't want to hang out with me, like, it's not these people, it's me. You know, I'm the one who needs to work on this. Not trying to control everyone else in my life to be a certain way to make me happy. And that was a wake up call that got me down this whole path of learning and navigating and, and developing myself. And I think it's an, it's going to be an ongoing journey for the rest of my life. That was unattended grief. Me automatically getting angry really over nothing.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  I would love to talk about triggers for a moment.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  Let's do it.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  And before we go there, I just want to say, when we're talking about the sixth stage in finding meaning, I'm just in awe of that story that you have taken this worst event. Probably one of the worst of your life. And you are talking about it and helping millions of people who you're not even going to know how much you helped them. That's you making meaning. That's you making meaning. I mean, it's remarkable.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Take that in.

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. And it's, you know, I remember I launched this show, School of Greatness, 13 and a half years ago. And I went through this kind of workshop before, right before, no, it's after I launched the podcast, maybe six months in. And it's funny because, you know, I had a small following back then. But after I launched this, after I did the workshop and started releasing this kind of grief, I guess, I don't know if you call it releasing it or integrating it or whatever.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  It dissipates.

• 43:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I would start getting these emails from people saying, I really liked your show before, but like, something's different about how you respond and how you interact and the, and the questions you ask. And people were noticing me transforming by just my energy on the show. And I waited maybe six months after this workshop and me starting this process. And after kind of talking to my friends and family about what, what I went through, sexual abuse.

• 43:30Lewis Howes?

  And I realized, oh, okay, I've opened up to a group of strangers. I've opened them up to my friends and family. But I'm still afraid of kind of my audience or the, or others knowing this about me.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  And I realized like, oh, it still has control over me.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  And I'm not saying everyone should open up publicly about what they've been through. I don't think that's necessary. But I felt like I was living a lie to my community that I was communicating about so many things, but I wasn't willing to open up about this. And for me, I felt like it wasn't maybe the final stage, but it was like a big stage of me and kind of learning how to heal. Because I was so afraid of the opinions of others. I was so afraid of what are people going to think about me? Are they going to stop listening to me? Are they not going to like me? Are they going to judge me? Whatever it was, I was living in fear.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  And that I, I opened up about it publicly on my show. And I remember I recorded it and I waited months to post it. I was so afraid. But I was like, man, this fear is essentially holding me back. It's kind of controlling my, my life. And so I, I posted it and it's still 13 years later, the most downloaded episode I've ever done. A whole book came from that years later called The Mask of Masculinity because I had never seen a man open up about sexual abuse publicly. I'm sure it was out there, but I never witnessed like a, a big athlete talking about this or it being a thing.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:59Lewis Howes?

  And then later, I think Oprah did a whole segment where all these men talked about sexual abuse, but I hadn't seen this. And so I was like, I felt like I was the only one had been through this because I never talked about it. I never heard anyone else talk about it.

• 45:13Lewis Howes?

  So it was the most terrifying thing, even though I learned that one in six men have been sexually abused. One in four women have been sexually abused. And, but for men, there's usually nowhere to talk about it. You know, it's horrible no matter who it happens to. But most men never open up about, never talk about, never have a safe space or feel like they're able to. And so for me, it was a very healing experience, knowing that others then came to me as a safe space to share their story.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  And I think that's where the meaning, I think you were talking about the meaning came from, from me was like, oh, me sharing it. And now I get messages so frequently where people say, you know, I went through a similar thing that you went through in childhood. And I already know what they're meaning. They might be afraid to say it.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  But they feel comfortable saying to me, I've been through some similar stuff as you. I see myself in you from what you've been through as a kid. And I already know that this man has probably never spoken about this. And to be a sacred space for them in that moment, so they can start hopefully the process of healing.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  And that's such a hallmark of grief and shame and trauma. You know, even I remember that in my childhood, I was sure I was the only one that had a parent die.

• 46:31Lewis Howes?

  Really? Wow.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Like, well, I had a formula. My, my friends' parents were alive.

• 46:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I mean, I, you know, and is that feeling of it's only me? And I often get asked what my definition of healing is. And to me, healing is when the event no longer controls you.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  And that's exactly what you did. You were no longer going to be controlled by that event.

• 47:00Lewis Howes?

  And I realized. I still was because I was afraid to talk about it to certain people.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Which is it controlling you?

• 47:06Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So I was like, okay, I need to release this fully. I need to have so much courage.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:12Lewis Howes?

  And talk about this, no matter what the consequences might be.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:15Lewis Howes?

  Like if everyone unfollows me, at least I'm free.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  Cause I didn't feel free.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  And listen, I mean, I remember seeing you years ago and seeing how you've changed. And you know, the thing is you and I casually sitting here discussing sexual abuse that we both had, I promise you 1050, I couldn't imagine like, we're just gonna, that's just going to be a casual.

• 47:38Lewis Howes?

  Just brought up.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  But it doesn't control us.

• 47:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it doesn't.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  It doesn't.

• 47:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  I want to get to triggers for a moment. So triggers, you know, we live in a world now that it's all about trigger warnings. And it is a version of let me control the outside. My loved one died. I can't go by that part of town. She divorced me. I can't be with those, whatever it is. We have those triggers and the game now is sort of trigger warning. You know, please don't wear white shoes. That freaks me out. It triggers me. And the problem is I'm under the illusion that the problem is out here.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to control my environment. You thought you were gonna beat those guys up enough to control, you know, you're trying to fix it all on the outside. And the problem around that is when people come to me and say, I don't know where to start with grief and trauma. I go, what triggers you? Your triggers are a map to your pain. And they are a map to your healing.

• 48:47Lewis Howes?

  Your freedom.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  We come with a map. Each of us has a map right now. I don't know what to work on. You got a map. You got a map. And for us to realize if I start going, all right, no one wear white, you know, tennis shoes. What's going to happen is I'm going to be in emotional avoidance. And I'm teaching emotional estrangement. I'm going to begin to live in a world where nothing can upset me. And going back to what we talked about, I want to help people build capacity. Yeah, those, those white shoes are fine. It's, it's good. Someone in white shoes years ago was a jerk.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  But I'm in the moment now and I can see you're not. So to understand, you know, sometimes when I was doing like events and conferences, someone would run out of the room and they'll go, it's too painful in that room. And I'd go, I get that. Take care of yourself. Leave if you need to. Don't have the illusion you're leaving the pain in the room.

• 49:56Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  It's running out with you. So the dances there whenever you're ready.

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  Until you face the trigger, you're always going to be, I guess, a prisoner of that trigger.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Of that trigger.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  It's going to chase after you or be with you, no matter what your addiction you're chasing or connected to, or how much sex you have, or how much sugar you eat, or how much whatever, drug of choice, how hard you work. You know, being a workaholic or whatever it is. That trigger and pain and trauma or whatever it is, the association around that is going to continue to follow you.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:31Lewis Howes?

  Until you turn around and face it.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Well, here's my thought, whether we're talking about triggers or feelings or grief, trauma. What we run from pursues us. And what we face transforms us. You and I have been transformed by our pain.

• 50:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  And we also spent years running from it.

• 50:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, years.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  We, we know both roads.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Years, man. And it was, uh, it's funny because I thought the more I accomplished, the better I would feel. But it was almost like the more I accomplished externally, the worse I felt because it didn't take the pain away.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Success is a great deodorant.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Kind of covers it all up, you know?

• 51:15Lewis Howes?

  But it's even stinkier.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  And we know we smell.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And it's like the shame grows because you're like, oh, I still don't feel like I'm good enough. I still don't feel like I matter or I'm worthy, even though I'm accomplishing or I have whatever marker to say that I'm accomplished something. And I still don't feel lovable or I still don't feel enough. It's like, what is that in us? When we chase something so big, we accomplish it and we still don't feel enough. What is that?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Because we're trying to outrun our past, our feelings. And we think, oh, that award, that game, that success, that amount of money in the bank, whatever it is. And, and it can even be, you know, all the things we talk about drugs, sex, da, da, da. It can be success. It can be service. It can be, you know, there's plenty of people I know that are like these amazing volunteers who couldn't take care of themselves if they tried. You know, and the reality is to allow ourselves to say it to one other person.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, we just need someone to go, oh, you're still okay. You're not the first and unfortunately you're not going to be the last. And we all have struggles. Yours looks different than mine. But we assume the people we see on social media or TV or in sports, they don't have them. And then we see something go wrong and we're like, what? How can that be?

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, they have all the money and success.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 53:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  And I'll tell you, there's a line that Freud said Freud was once asked, would he rather work with someone who's poor or someone who's rich? And he said, always rich.

• 53:11Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 53:12Speaker 01

  And they said, why? And he said, because the rich person knows that happiness is no longer in the money.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  The poor person.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  I have to convince the poor person.

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  Think so. When I make money, I want to be happy.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  It's going to be the key to everything. It's going to be the key to that hole, the emptiness, all of that inside of us.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  I know that feeling too. Once I started making money, it didn't take the pain away.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:36Lewis Howes?

  It didn't make me feel like I, I healed the, the hurt boy in me or I was less angry or frustrated or resentful.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  But you couldn't have told that to your poor unsuccessful self growing up, you know?

• 53:48Lewis Howes?

  Like this is going to solve my problems.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't solve. It almost amplifies your problems.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  It does. The stakes become higher.

• 53:55Lewis Howes?

  I'll speak from personal experience. When I didn't feel like I was in a healthy space internally and I had money, I, I was all heightened like anxiety around me. And I didn't want to lose it. And I felt like people were trying to take it or, or use me in some way. It was like, oh, now that they know that I've made some money. Are they really my friend? It's all these other interpretations around the triggers that I still had.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Cause think about here we have unlovable ness, unfairness. No one will love me. I'm not worthy, da, da, da. If I just get money, that's going to help. And we get money and then we go, they're still here.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  They're all still here. The success, the money, the whatever didn't do it. And that's when you need someone to work with you, who's going to go, all right, since you've done all this, could we just talk about those?

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 54:52Lewis Howes?

  Of all the people you've worked with in grief groups, uh, from high profile individuals to people who are completely unknown, going through their own experiences. What is the number one thing that most people struggle with within themselves? That they believe they're not what?

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Worthy, whole. They're not worthy and they're not whole.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  Why are so many, why do so many people believe they're not worthy and they don't feel like they're whole?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Cause I think we're raised to do more, to be more, to become someone. Forgetting you are someone. Like your worth is not by the doing, your worth is just because you're here on the planet. Money's not bad or good. It's kind of neutral.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Success isn't bad or good. It's neutral.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  How does someone separate, you know, being in a relationship and needing to provide for that relationship and that family versus not performing well or not getting the, the results they wanted? How do you, how do you not interpret, oh, I'm not good at this yet? But I'm still a worthy person. How do you, how do you navigate both those worlds? Like I'm not performing, I'm failing, I'm struggling here, but I'm still whole? How do you know that?

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Hopefully we have people in our life that love us no matter what. I know a million people that I, millions exaggeration, but a lot of people over the years who like literally are out doing with someone at home going, I wish you were home more. And they're like, well, when I get successful, I'll be home more. And I always say, if you're not home more now, when you get success, you're, you're, you're going to be gone even more. Then it's just going to be another country you're going to instead of across town. It's about realizing this is what matters. Our loved ones matter. You know, to really understand this is all we got.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  It's just a monopoly game. It's a monopoly game. Play well. I'll talk strategy with you around playing well, but let's not believe we're the game. We're just playing the game. We're not the voices in our head. We're the one listening to them. And sometimes we might not want to listen to them so well.

• 57:23Lewis Howes?

  If someone's in a relationship with a, and they've been married for a while, and they're, you know, they both got married for good intentions, but five, 10, 20 years down the road, they start waking up to some of this information and they start going through a self-discovery, start processing grief, start healing some. But they realize that their partner is stuck in the past, stuck in

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  unattended grief and they're triggered constantly, they're reactive a lot. They're not willing to speak or open up about their past. They don't want to go there to the hurt places. They have these unresolved feelings that they stuff and then anger comes out at different times or control comes out. What can that person do?

• 58:12Lewis Howes?

  To not, obviously they can't fix their partner, they can't change their partner, but how can they meet their partner in a place where they can still have a beautiful relationship? Even if that partner doesn't want to change or address the unresolved grief?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Invitations and boundaries.

• 58:30Lewis Howes?

  What if they don't like boundaries?

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Well, well, if they don't like boundaries, you're not doing boundaries for you. For them, you're doing boundaries for yourself. The people who cross boundaries are ourselves. You can't cross my boundaries. I can only break my boundaries.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  By allowing it to happen.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, by allowing it. Don't go over there. I told you, da-da-da, I'm gonna lecture you. No. Hey dude, if you want to be in my presence, we don't do that. So there has to be a gentle, you know, I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm changing. To your wife, to your husband, uh, I'd love you to come do some of these things with me. Could we go to therapy? Lots and lots of invitations. At a certain point, we have to go, they're different from me. And is that still workable? You know, in the old days, I think in relationships, we had this belief that we should be exactly the same.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  We both need to love this. We both have to, we can't have different interests or that spells trouble. Well, you know what? Maybe you do like those things and I'm gonna like, love that you're you. And I'm gonna do these things and we can have our together things and we can have some separate interests. And that's okay. And there's a time, some people could outgrow a relationship. I just want to make sure they've really done the invitations and done the work and things like that.

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  You wrote that you can only avoid grief by avoiding love. What do you mean by that?

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  And avoiding life. And avoiding life, you know.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll, I'll tell you, some people, you know, I've heard your son dying must have been the worst tragedy. It's actually not.

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  The worst tragedy would have been to have come to this world and not met him.

• 1:00:32Lewis Howes?

  My gosh. Yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  That's the worst.

• 1:00:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  I got to know him.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  And I get to know all these people in my life now. And, you know, it's one of the things that I think, so I ran into a neighbor who I hadn't seen, actually was my boss 30 years ago. And she said to me, oh my gosh, you live so close, I'd be friends, but it would be too depressing to be friends with you. And I said, you'd be surprised, my life isn't that depressing. I'm actually a really fun-loving person and I have a great time in life. And I think-

• 1:01:11Lewis Howes?

  Just because she says you, you speak about grief all the time or something.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. She's like, okay, that's, you know, I must want to sit around going, seen any good deaths lately? I don't know what she imagined, something crazy. But it's that idea that I no longer have that, those needs that pick me, that let's do the, let's find our way, like that. Life is okay. And do you want to walk together? Let's walk for a while. Oh, you want to go? All right, I'm gonna go this. I mean, it's just becomes this adventure we're on. And one of the things that I've learned is because I see so much death, it doesn't make me go, what's the point? Instead, it makes me go, let me take this in.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  You know, like in the worst scenario,

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  today could be my last day. I mean, I'm with people all the time that were doing something and then they died.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  If today's my last day, I have a couple of choices. If I haven't been current, I can dart out of here and start saying, I apologize, I'm sorry, and make amends and blah, blah, blah. But if I've been current, I can go, wow, if today was my last day,

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  this is my last podcast. Wow, let me go deeper. Let me not waste this moment. Let me not waste their time. Let me truly show up for life. And I don't die today and I get to have a great day. Cause someone's gonna die, someone's gonna divorce, a breakup's gonna happen, I mean, gonna happen. And let me be present for the moments when it does and the moments when it doesn't. How many of us have ruined good moments when nothing bad was happening? Because of all the moments we didn't attend to.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Right. How does someone know the difference of them going through grief or being depressed?

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  You know, it's interesting. I always say that is really a question for a psychiatrist and I encourage people to see a psychiatrist who knows grief. Like we even have a grief educator certificate program and I'm so proud when psychiatrists come through because you can become a psychiatrist, a therapist, a coach without one hour of grief education. Crazy. And so it's important to know there's different markers. You know, when you're clinically depressed, that's one state that is very different from the sadness of grief.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  But we also live in a world that we don't use the word sad anymore. Oh my gosh, Louis, we were so depressed at lunch yesterday, but you're not now? Did you go through a drive-through depression center? What did you do? I mean, we don't go, and think about it this way, if someone said, I'm so depressed, my sister died, go see a doctor, you need to get something done about that. But if I said, I'm so sad, my sister died, of course you are, that's your sister. Notice there's less to fix when we allow our feelings. But depression's very serious.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  See a psychiatrist, a good psychiatrist can tell you grief versus clinical depression.

• 1:04:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. For anyone that feels afraid of the future, whether it be their relationship, their health, the economy, wars, any number of things that could cause uncertainty or fear in someone. How can they use this information that you have in your work and your books to navigate the uncertainties of the world for the future? The, the uncertainties of loss of anything?

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  So the biggest thing that I think about is anxiety, fear of the future, really challenging, and you're in the future. Now, why are we in the future? Cause something bad has happened in our past. We're not fearful, we are predicting. We are trying to manage what's going to happen here because if the it's the fan, I need a plan. That's why we're catastrophizers, we're this, we're that, da-da-da, all that. We're protectors. And if you're in the future, I have enormous compassion because something bad happened that's asking to be attended to.

• 1:05:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, to prepare.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And, and that past needs attention. And if you're in your future, do you know what you can't be?

• 1:06:04Lewis Howes?

  In your present.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  And loving and connecting. If love and connection helps us.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  And we're in our future, we're in trouble. So many times I'll be working with someone who's saying they're really anxious and they go out and they see their friends and it doesn't work out well. And I'll go, what happens? Well, I sit down with my friend, I tell them how anxious I am. And I go, and then eventually they say, nice to see me and leave. And I go, so here's the plan. You gotta go, we're gonna be together for an hour today. I'd like to take a chunk of that and just tell you what's going on with me. And then really keep me accountable. And then I want to hear what's going on with you.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  And I want to be really present for you too. Then we suddenly have a connection. And instead of one person living in the future, two people have brought themselves into the present. Changes everything.

• 1:07:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Loving connection only can happen in the now.

• 1:07:14Lewis Howes?

  If someone is always stressed and worrying about the future, what is that signaling about that person? Is it that they're, they have a pain from the past that's unresolved?

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Something from the past.

• 1:07:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  That's asking for their attention and they're playing it out that way. Listen, and it doesn't mean you can't be like a really productive and really successful and really doing amazing things in the world. It's how do we do it? I mean, I've been successfully doing things in unhealthy ways and in healthy ways. And it feels different on the inside and I know that.

• 1:07:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  And I, I mean, we're all struggling. I mean, believe me, I, I, I'm sure I could say it about like, whatever you think, we got stuff going on.

• 1:08:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  We always do. And if we don't today, it's coming tomorrow and we'll be able to manage it.

• 1:08:07Lewis Howes?

  What's your biggest fear for humanity over the next 10 years? Based on what we've been through with COVID and wars over the last six, seven years? And the predictions of the future with all the changes of AI and financial currencies and wars and, and, and conflict? What is your worry on humanity's ability to be loving it in the moment?

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  We will give away our power. We'll, we'll give away our power, whether it's to our government, leaders, whatever it is, we're going to give our power away. Or to AI. Listen, I got an AI. I really made sure it didn't say generic stuff that you can find anywhere. I created it just from my work. It's better for the environment. It helps people in so many ways. Look, I can be up in the middle of the night. If I happen to be scrolling and seeing there's a woman in Serbia whose child just died. I can get on WhatsApp and call and talk to her in Serbia for an hour, right after her child died.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  Can't do that often. AI helps me help people at 3:00 AM. Cause grief's 24 hours a day. So that's a really wonderful thing about AI. If it's curated and safely done. On the other hand, you know, it can take over the world and you know, we're in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Because we gave our power away to the people who are managing it. Find your own power and use it to change something.

• 1:09:49Lewis Howes?

  If you could prescribe that every person watching and listening, master one skill to have more love, harmony, peace for the future, no matter what happens as they're going to go through different challenges in life. They're going to go through different grief and losses and unmet changes. What's the one skill you would prescribe everyone to learn or master to be able to navigate the uncertainties of what will happen in the future?

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Get support. Get support. You know, it's a strange thing. I had a flat tire. And when I got new tires, I bought a tire plan. I bought a plan for my tires in case I hit a pothole. Do you know that sometimes I don't treat myself well? But I protected my tires. So if we can get support, doesn't it have to be a therapist or a grief group or divorce group or whatever it is? Just talk to a friend, share, find a way to connect with someone else. Connection is everything.

• 1:11:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Just connect with one other person. And if you can't connect, go help, go volunteer.

• 1:11:11Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. That'll help you a lot. Your book's called Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief by David Kessler. I want you guys to check this out. For me, when I learned how to navigate grief and loss and heal, it created such a level of peace and abundance inside of me. And it didn't mean I was like perfect overnight and it didn't, you know, I still have stresses. But when I learned how to navigate these skills, it gave me, it unlocked my life in ways I never knew were possible. So I want people to get your book.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  I also did a workbook with it. Because I want people go, what's grief work? It's like, this is like me sitting down with you at your kitchen table. We're going to do it together.

• 1:11:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I think the workbook is probably the best place to start because if you're afraid to speak in front of other people, then it's almost like you have a, you know, you working with them through a workbook where you can be introspective rather than in a group setting. But like you said, the best place to go next is with a group. Whether you're paying for a therapist, you're meeting a small group somewhere. And you have, aboutgrief.com has Tender Hearts online grief groups.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  We have aboutgrief.com is a free video that just teaches you about grief. My website is grief.com. You can find our Tender Hearts grief group there. We got 26 groups around people dying, whether it's a brother, sister. We've got a faith group, an afterlife group. We even got an anticipatory grief group for people whose loved ones are sick.

• 1:12:49Lewis Howes?

  And these are all online?

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  All online. And we've got like a time for Australia, a time for Europe. You know, we, we've really honed that really well to help people. No one's turned away for lack of funds. We make sure everyone has access to that.

• 1:13:06Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  And the other thing you can find on grief.com is we got an amazing grief certificate program. People who want to turn their pain into purpose. You know, not everyone can do books or podcasts, but maybe you could be the person in your neighborhood that people know how to come to. Or maybe you could be the therapist or the coach that becomes really good and understands the changes we can make when we get this part of our life.

• 1:13:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Okay, so that's all at grief.com?

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Grief.com, you can find it all there.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. And what's the difference between online grief group versus in person?

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  You know, I was the first to say when that whole thing started, I was like, I don't know that emotions will translate. And someone said to me, have you been to a movie? Like emotions translate. But it's great because I watched the struggle for years of people who went, I want just a suicide group, but I'm in a group of widows. Or my local one doesn't have a group for siblings. Or, you know, I'm a young widow. It's hard for me to be with older widow. We can do them.

• 1:14:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  We can just do them online in your time zone so easy.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  Does someone, when they join one of these grief groups, do they go once a week, once a month? What is this process?

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  We have it where it's four times a week that they have the options to attend. And it's like, you want to go into a group? Great. Two times a week, you can see me working with one person. Someone volunteers to work with me. Everyone else watches and people go, why would that help? That person asks a question, you didn't know you needed the answer and it changes you. And then on Fridays, we have a different topic. Because there's not one voice in grief, not mine, not yours. And it's like, let's take a topic and discuss it. How did you handle guilt? How do you handle being happy?

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  How do you handle the things that people say that are cruel?

• 1:15:11Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting, I was coaching someone at an event a few weeks ago. And it was a widow, a woman who had lost her husband that she was in love with. And I think it was about maybe 10 years ago. And she's remarried. She's got a blended family and I think new kids as well in the remarriage. And she was like, one of the hardest things for me has been like feeling good. Like accepting that I feel really good where I'm at now. I feel guilty being happy.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Lewis Howes?

  When other people are not happy, they're still grieving, they, they feel like you're never going to be able to find someone again. You're not allowed to have love and joy and happiness again when you've lost your husband or, or someone close to you. And she goes, it feels really good to finally start to be able to say, I'm worthy of feeling happy again. And love again, even though I lost a great man that I loved as well.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  That's a story we often play in our mind of disloyalty.

• 1:16:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Look.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Really? I'm going to be happy again after my son died? That doesn't sound like a good parent. But I had to really think about who my son is. And am I being loyal to him by not living again? Is that really what he would want? And I'll tell you, I can imagine, I don't know what the afterlife's like. But I could imagine, whatever it is, how many years from now, decades, I arrive in the afterlife. And I meet my son. It's great. We finally see each other again. And he says to me, oh, my gosh, tell me about Earth. Wasn't it incredible? And I go, well, I grieved. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm sure you did. That had to be hard. It was really brutal. I get it.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  And what about like, I missed the food. Was the food, what else? Did you go places? Did you travel? And I'm like, no, I just grieved.

• 1:17:13Lewis Howes?

  Just sat in my home.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  My son would be like, dude, life's too, too incredible to miss. And here's the thing, it's a decision. She made a decision. You know, I live in a cute little neighborhood with these little, small houses. And I can imagine, I knew there was a moment where I could have been the grief guy that never left his house again. And I could imagine the teenager is driving by going, is that a haunted house? No, it's a grief expert whose son died and he never came out again. I could have seen that, but it was a decision to live again.

• 1:17:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  And each of us, in small ways and big ways, not just around death, have that decision every day. Do we show up? Do we live again? Do we sink? Every one of us is deciding that constantly, no matter what your circumstances are.

• 1:18:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:18:20Lewis Howes?

  I've got a couple of final questions for you, David, but I want to acknowledge you first for not being stuck in your house after grief and coming out and finding ways to expand and live even with more joy, more love, more acceptance. And continuing to be of service to so many people who are going through this. And ultimately finding meaning in the process. Because I think that's does what makes life richer. And when I can look back on my life, you know, I don't like that the five year old in me had to experience sexual abuse. But I can find meaning now and not say, I wish it happened again, but I can find meaning saying it did happen. And because I'm able to process it now and find meaning, hopefully I'm able to help other people

• 1:19:05Lewis Howes?

  by being able to sit with them or being able to share this story with you without it crippling me like it used to.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:12Lewis Howes?

  And so that meaning that you've created is really powerful and I acknowledge you for that.

• 1:19:18Lewis Howes?

  I have two final questions for you. This is called the three truths.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:21Lewis Howes?

  So imagine hypothetically, you get to live as long as you want. But on the final day, you have to take all of your work with you. So this book, this podcast, everything you've ever created, everything you create from now until that day is gone. Not from this world anymore. But you get to leave behind three final lessons with the world that we would get to keep. I call it the three truths. What would those be for you?

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Love is all that matters. Let the good just saturate in you. Take in the good. We know how to take in the bad. Take in the good and be you. It's, it's, it's a strange thing, like those of us who have really done this work know, being you sounds like the easiest thing in the world to be your authentic self. It's the hardest thing to let go of all the who we think we should be. Just be ourselves. I still work on that all the time. I'm going to not only leave that behind for everyone, I'm going to try to continue to take it in.

• 1:20:21Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. Uh, final question, David, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  Showing up for others and yourself.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Showing up fully for others and yourself.

• 1:20:34Lewis Howes?

  David Kessler, thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:20:37Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode right now because we are on a mission to impact 100 million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 1:21:17Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.