Pod Insights The Dr. John Delony Show Grief Expert: Why Grief Demands a Witness (With David Kessler) About this episode 🇺🇸 Watch United States of Anxiety Exclusively on the Free Ramsey Network App!
In this episode, John interviews grief expert David Kessler about how to address grief and process emotions on your own timeline.
Next Steps:
Learn more about David Kessler and resources for grief
Follow David on Instagram
📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message.
📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life
📝 Anxiety Test
📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future
❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards
💭 John's Free Guided Meditation
🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch
Connect With Our Sponsors:
🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp.
🌿 Get up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY.
🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.
😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial.
💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers!
💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne.
🥤 Get 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY.
🏔 Head to Poncho Outdoors to check out all their styles!
Listen to More From Ramsey Network:
🎙️ The Ramsey Show
💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights
🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour
💡 The Rachel Cruze Show
💰 George Kamel
💼 The Ken Coleman Show
📈 EntreLeadership
Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy
https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:05 Speaker 00 There is no timeline in grief. If you are, it's a week ago, it's a month ago, I'm sitting here witnessing. You're four years in, aren't getting out of the house, or you're not getting back in relationships, I'm gonna be a little tougher coach.
0:22 Dr. John Delony? There you go. Yeah.
0:29 Dr. John Delony? What's up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad you're with us. We're talking about your emotional and mental health, your relationships, whatever you got going on in your life. I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna sit with you, and we're gonna figure out what's the next right move. On today's episode, we have a second part of one of my favorite conversations I've ever had with one of my heroes, the great David Kessler. David Kessler is a world-renowned expert on grief, and nobody likes to talk about grief, but grief impacts every single person living and breathing right now, including you and including me. And we have to grieve the big things, the small things, and we have a grief-illiterate
1:14 Dr. John Delony? world, as he says. And so in this part two, we're talking about grief demanding a witness, something that I've been saying forever and ever, and I got the line from him, and so much more. So I've got his book here, by the way, The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook, for anyone who's struggling, and we'll link to it in the show notes. So check out the second part of my conversation with the great David Kessler, right here.
1:39 Dr. John Delony? The most powerful line you've given me is grief demands a witness.
1:43 Speaker 00 Grief demands a witness.
1:45 Dr. John Delony? Every civilization, every faith community in all of human history, have had a moment where people sit down and say,
1:52 Dr. John Delony? Tell me your story. And so often like I lost my husband last month. Stop. What was his name? Like, we're going to tell the story. I want, I want to. There's something so powerful. Let me ask you this. You, you manage these amazing global online grief communities. I have made the case, and tell me if I'm wrong, that in many ways, storytelling, being with, if you will, digitally is like Twinkies. It's calories, but it's not rich food. Is there a, have you noticed a difference between in person and online?
2:32 Speaker 00 I started there.
2:33 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
2:33 Speaker 00 I mean, listen.
2:34 Dr. John Delony? I love being wrong. So tell me if I'm wrong.
2:36 Speaker 00 When the pandemic hit.
2:37 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
2:38 Speaker 00 People were like, you got to move online. And I was like, I don't know that emotions translate. And one of my buddies said, have you ever seen a movie?
2:49 Dr. John Delony? Oh, gosh, yes.
2:51 Speaker 00 Oh, all right. Yeah. Now, here's the thing. On a Zoom call, I see your face just like this. I mean, I wish I could tell you. I mean, look, if you came in and you smelled bad, I wouldn't know it on a Zoom. But every other thing, I get every little expression. And here's the thing, you know, people go when they hear there's a grief group, they go, oh, I don't want to be online with six people. That's I'm like, no, no, there's hundreds. There's hundreds. And the shocking thing about it is, there's some people who are like, hey, I got a question. I went,
3:35 Speaker 00 you've asked a question yesterday, like, let's have, you know, but there's other people who are in the back, have never turned their Zoom on. They've never, you know, you can be anonymous, or you can be in the front row.
3:48 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
3:49 Speaker 00 And one of the things that's shocking about it is, I do topics, we do check-ins, and I do one-on-ones. And in the one-on-ones, it's me and that person, and hundreds of people are watching it. They don't get seen in that moment. We find each other in each other's stories.
4:11 Dr. John Delony? That's it.
4:12 Speaker 00 And we find our healing in each other's stories. I mean, I get tons of emails of people who go, oh, my gosh. That person asked the question I didn't even know was the question I had. That was the one I needed for my healing.
4:28 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
4:29 Speaker 00 Like, I would have never even thought to ask that. And they did. And you went there and you healed them. And I go, I didn't heal them. They healed them.
4:39 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
4:40 Speaker 00 And you found your healing in them. And then in yourself. So I think it does work.
4:47 Dr. John Delony? It does work.
4:48 Speaker 00 I think it does work.
4:49 Dr. John Delony? Thank you for changing my mind on that.
4:51 Speaker 00 I am never going to like be face to face with people in Australia, New Zealand, in the UK. And, you know, all over the US. And it's like such, and boy, let me tell you, when there's like, sometimes I'll do these free online events.
5:07 Speaker 00 We have 40,000 people.
5:09 Dr. John Delony? Right, right.
5:09 Speaker 00 You talk about how universal grief is. That like, I speak the same language. Wait, you're in rural Alaska? You haven't seen another person in weeks? And yet.
5:25 Dr. John Delony? You hurt too.
5:25 Speaker 00 We're connected. You hurt too.
5:28 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, I guess, man, listening to you talk about that makes me think.
5:35 Dr. John Delony? I am in charge of food distribution after a huge traumatic weather event. And I hold back the food because it's not, you know, Michelin star quality. People are hungry. Let's get food.
5:53 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:53 Dr. John Delony? Let's get food.
5:54 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:54 Dr. John Delony? And let's not negotiate calories right now.
5:56 Speaker 00 Look, I tell people, like, if there's an amazing grief group down the block at your church, you don't need us.
6:03 Dr. John Delony? That's right.
6:04 Speaker 00 And I'll tell you, grief is overwhelming and exhausting. That it's like, people are like, oh, no, I need the church group. I need your group and I need my counselor and I need my clergy. Like, and it's still barely enough to hold me together, you know?
6:19 Dr. John Delony? The answer should be yes, yeah. Especially in our world, we have. We're so lonely, right? And we don't have regular people to, regular groups of people in our lives just as a way of being to help.
6:32 Speaker 00 And people in those groups, the first question I ask, you come on, you start to talk, and I go, how long has your loved one been dead?
6:40 Dr. John Delony? Hmm.
6:41 Speaker 00 And I tell the group, and here's why I'm asking, there is no timeline in grief.
6:46 Dr. John Delony? Right.
6:46 Speaker 00 But if you are, it's a week ago, it's a month ago, I'm sitting there witnessing.
6:54 Dr. John Delony? That's it.
6:54 Speaker 00 Being there, sitting with you in compassion.
6:56 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
6:57 Speaker 00 You're four years in and you aren't getting out of the house, or you're not getting back in relationships, or you're not living life. I'm, I'm gonna be a little tougher coach.
7:11 Dr. John Delony? There you go.
7:12 Speaker 00 Yeah. You know, like, there's different moments. There's, there's not one size fits all.
7:17 Dr. John Delony? Yeah. I often tell folks who just experienced loss, you probably will not remember this conversation. I want you to remember.
7:26 Dr. John Delony? You exhaled once, right? And I want you to remember that.
7:29 Speaker 00 Right.
7:30 Dr. John Delony? You're not gonna remember the exact. In fact, they used to tell us, bring a, bring a brochure or something because they, no one's gonna remember. They can, that's okay.
7:37 Speaker 00 Right, right.
7:37 Dr. John Delony? What do you tell the person who is sitting not so much in the loss moment yet, but it's not fair moment?
7:45 Speaker 00 Luckily, I had so many teachers to draw on.
7:49 Dr. John Delony? Hmm.
7:51 Speaker 00 You know, um,
7:55 Speaker 00 I'm a reserve specialist with my local police department. I ran a group for police officers whose children died by suicide with the officer's gun.
8:09 Dr. John Delony? Hmm.
8:10 Speaker 00 Wait, wait. You're protecting our world? You're showing up in a dangerous world? And your child died?
8:24 Speaker 00 I, oh, that's, that doesn't make cosmic sense to me.
8:27 Dr. John Delony? Right. It's extra not right.
8:29 Speaker 00 It's extra not right. You know, there's so many situations like that, that I would sit with people. I remember there was a couple that came to a retreat, and I think I even wrote about them in there, whose two-year-old daughter went out with grandma in New York, and they're sitting on a bench, and a random brick falls.
9:00 Dr. John Delony? No, man.
9:01 Speaker 00 And kills the child.
9:04 Speaker 00 I'm sorry, what? What? What? Like, a random brick?
9:08 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
9:08 Speaker 00 And here's the thing about this. I worked with her on her anger, and I remember she kept saying, "I can't say it. I can't say it." And we're in a room with hundreds of people, and I said, "What if you just said it? What if we understood it and you said it?" And she goes, "I hate old people." And I go, "Okay, good. Let's, let's release the shame of that." And there were some people who were a little older in the room, and I said, "I wonder, could you, like, really scream this out, or hit the pillow, or whatever? Could you release this anger?" And she goes, "I can't." And I said, "We're gonna do it with you."
9:52 Speaker 00 And I had the room going, "We hate old people." And like, to hear it, it would have sounded crazy.
9:59 Dr. John Delony? Right, right.
10:00 Speaker 00 And then she fell down in tears as she released it. And then the truth was spoken.
10:10 Speaker 00 You don't really hate old people. You hate that we live in a world that this person got 80 years and says they're not that happy. And your daughter got two years. You're not angry at old people. You're angry at the unfairness of the world.
10:28 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
10:29 Speaker 00 So, yeah, the grief expert's son dies.
10:34 Speaker 00 Someone, and she's in the faith community. A brick falls, a police officer, this is our world.
10:41 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
10:41 Speaker 00 Now, one of the things, when we look at the psychological world, personalization does not help us.
10:52 Speaker 00 Death is the most personal thing that happens. When you're getting a divorce feels pretty personal. And then you have to go, the betrayal? The divorce? It actually isn't about me. It's happening to me, but it's not about me. I don't believe there is a God that looked down and went, "A David Kessler, gonna get him, I'm gonna, oh, this is..." That's not the God that I believe in.
11:27 Dr. John Delony? Correct.
11:28 Speaker 00 I don't think there was a personal nature to it. And it's, it's the most personal brutal thing that's happened to me. And I don't think that that brick chose that girl. I don't think those, I think this is a life where loss happens, tragedy happens, period. That hurricane is not picking the houses.
11:54 Dr. John Delony? Right. It is.
11:57 Speaker 00 It just is. It just is. So those are like, those are nuances to get to. I would never get to these nuances with someone newly.
12:06 Dr. John Delony? Oh, of course not.
12:07 Speaker 00 But we're talking nuances.
12:08 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, and we're also, I think the meta here for me is, we are story making creatures.
12:13 Speaker 00 Correct.
12:14 Dr. John Delony? And on the back end of something so horrific, once I'm able to breathe, I get to pick the story that I write next.
12:24 Speaker 00 Correct.
12:25 Dr. John Delony? And one of those stories will imprison me forever.
12:28 Speaker 00 Right.
12:28 Dr. John Delony? And one of those stories will set me free.
12:31 Speaker 00 And you may have been victimized, but it does not have to be a final victim story.
12:39 Dr. John Delony? Right. And in fact, power is, I'm not letting you victimize me anymore.
12:44 Speaker 00 Correct. And I'm not going to victimize myself by living that story after the traumatic event has happened.
12:52 Dr. John Delony? Right.
12:53 Speaker 00 I always say, bad enough this stuff happened once. Like, who wants to relive it every day?
13:00 Dr. John Delony? Yes. Which means there's a, I hate to use this word because it's unpopular, there's a choice.
13:05 Speaker 00 Right. And that's why, you know, we were talking about this book, this workbook, is because I always say to people, like, someone goes, I was told I have to talk to you and do my grief work. What's grief work? And I'm like, I'm going to take the tools and techniques that I've been teaching coaches and therapists for years, and put them in a workbook, like we're sitting at your kitchen table, and I'm walking you through some things.
13:31 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
13:32 Speaker 00 Now, as you know, you know, my teacher was Kubler-Ross with the five stages denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I hear her always telling me, tell them they're not linear. There is no model. There's not linear.
13:47 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
13:48 Speaker 00 We like, said that till, you know, we're just blue in the face.
13:52 Dr. John Delony? I know, but that's just the only way that new scientists have to try to-
13:55 Speaker 00 Well, we want to reduce our, right. You know, and look, you know-
13:59 Dr. John Delony? Drives me crazy. Well, you know, shut up. It helps. It helps.
14:02 Speaker 00 There was a big study at Yale that said, you know, it's, it's not denial, it's disbelief.
14:08 Dr. John Delony? Just shut up. Just shut up.
14:10 Speaker 00 And I'm like, okay, tomatoes, tomatoes.
14:13 Dr. John Delony? You know, you know who does those studies? And this is me being critical. It's people who don't regularly sit with hurting people. Because you know who doesn't care to parse somebody who just lost their kid, or somebody whose marriage just blew up? They don't, it's disbelief. Shut up. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
14:29 Speaker 00 And you know-
14:30 Dr. John Delony? Can we just sit with hurting people?
14:31 Speaker 00 Right, right. And it really is many times, it's the academic world. I gotta tell you, people go, which is the right grief model for, I'm like, no one in grief ever says to me, which model, which mo, I mean, look, people sit with me, and they go, I heard of you, you were taught by Kubler-Ross. I love the stages. I hate the stages. They're wrong. I'm like-
14:57 Speaker 00 So tell me, like,
14:58 Dr. John Delony? It's good to meet you. Tell me what your name is.
14:59 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'm not like, we're not even going to, and Kubler Ross was that way.
15:03 Dr. John Delony? Right.
15:03 Speaker 00 On our book, like, page one, we said, please let go of that. But, you know, to me, when I wrote about meaning, the first reaction from people when they hear meaning is, there's no meaning in a horrible divorce, betrayal, death, murder. Of course not. Meaning's in us. It's what we do after.
15:25 Dr. John Delony? Next, yeah.
15:25 Speaker 00 It's what we do after. I find the biggest thing I wrestled with was acceptance. We think there's one big acceptance. There's a million of them. And I just want to see if I can find this for you here, just to take in this.
15:47 Speaker 00 Because people go, I know I'm trying to accept it, and they're just sort of like, they're just wrestling with finding a big acceptance. I wanted to break this down.
15:54 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
15:54 Speaker 00 Let me just give you a few of these. If I truly accepted this death, and that could mean the death of the marriage, the death of betrayal,
16:03 Dr. John Delony? Death of my job, whatever, yeah.
16:05 Speaker 00 If I truly accepted this death, one thing I would change would be.
16:12 Speaker 00 Okay? If I truly accepted this death, I would stop.
16:19 Speaker 00 You know, would that be revolving in my mind? If I truly accepted this death, I could finally? I mean, I have a co-author of this book. It's the person that's going to write it. Like, I want to help you tease out the places where you have accepted, where you can't accept, where you're, you know, I mean, I was just at a conference and, you know, a woman bought three books and she said, this is for the me today. This is for me in three months. This is the me in six months and in a year.
16:58 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
16:59 Speaker 00 Like, she knows it's all going to keep changing and she's going to keep growing. And the fact that she knows she's going to keep changing and growing, and that there's not one state.
17:12 Dr. John Delony? You write in Finding Meaning, "My experience tells me that grief may be postponed, but it can't be eradicated."
17:21 Dr. John Delony? I'm often talking about the importance of markers, ceremonies, and people often raise an eyebrow to me when they say, "Hey, I don't want to take my 12-year-old to the funeral." And I say, "No, no, no, no, they have to go, right?" Or when I say, "You think you've been in a rough, abusive marriage? It's gonna shock you the day your attorney sends you the paper and says, 'It's over.'" Plan a small funeral. Write a letter to your seven-year-old self that says, "I'm sorry that Dad did that to you." Will you talk about the importance of markers and of ceremony, of action towards this period at the end of a sentence?
18:03 Speaker 00 Yeah. First of all, you mentioned kids. I have to just start with children. We are a grief-illiterate world in general. We are unbelievably grief-illiterate when it comes to our children. I mean, people will tell me, "Oh, you know, the other day, the goldfish died, and you know, our six-year-old was so sad." And I go, "What'd you say?" And they'll go, "Oh, we flushed it down the toilet. We told them it swam to the ocean." And I'm like...
18:36 Dr. John Delony? You just stole from them.
18:37 Speaker 00 You missed an opportunity. Well, I don't want to inflict pain. And I went, "Let me tell you. You are teaching them that if you cross the street without looking, pain will happen, and you want to spare them that pain by giving them information about the experience." Your child, 100%, like, the stats are in, 100% is gonna go through loss this lifetime.
19:08 Dr. John Delony? Correct.
19:08 Speaker 00 They're gonna go through breakups. They're gonna go through stuff. They're gonna go through loss. Boyfriends, girlfriends break up with them. Stuff's gonna happen. And you're not going to teach about that? You're gonna skip... Well, when they're older. I'm like, "What are you gonna do when they're older? Sacrifice a dog?"
19:24 Dr. John Delony? Right, right, right.
19:24 Speaker 00 I mean, people go, "But when do I begin teaching?" When the goldfish dies.
19:29 Dr. John Delony? Right now.
19:30 Speaker 00 When the neighbor dies. When grandpa... That is the moment.
19:34 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
19:35 Speaker 00 Like, when life happens is when you teach.
19:38 Dr. John Delony? So, I wanna tell a quick story. A buddy of mine had a...
19:46 Dr. John Delony? In my life, it's been the most adjacent horrific experience ever, the loss of a child. And fast forward several years later, I've got a four-year-old, my boy's four years old, and his dog dies. I took, I took the dog, the dog was very, very sick, took the dog to put the dog down. And they come in and they put the dog down, and I wasn't particularly close to this dog. I was just being the dad. And we were going out to his ranch, he had a ranch out in Texas. And they put the dog down, and then they take the dog. And I come to find out, they take the dog and all the dogs to a local incinerator in the city, and there we go. And something didn't sit right, and I hadn't connected the dots.
20:28 Dr. John Delony? And so I called this buddy and said, hey, I'm at the vet, I'm putting my dog down before I come out, and I know my son and my wife are already out there. I have a weird feeling about this. Would it be weird if I brought the dog out there, me and my son, buried it out at your place, out in the woods?
20:45 Dr. John Delony? Long pause.
20:48 Dr. John Delony? And in his classic, very Texas rancher way, he said, "If you don't take this opportunity to teach your son about loss, you are failing him as a father." And, "Okay." And I went out there, and I, we had to, it was a whole rigamaroo for them to let me take the dog, um, the dog's body. And we got out there, there was a small shovel and a big shovel that my buddy had leaned up against a tree. And then later on, maybe two or three days later, I got an email, he said, "I don't believe in capturing holy moments on film, so feel free to delete this." But there is a picture, and it's off in the distance, of me and my four-year-old digging a hole. And it's the most sacred photo I have.
21:34 Dr. John Delony? But more importantly than a photo, is shortly thereafter, my granddad died, shortly thereafter, my grandmother died, shortly thereafter, shortly thereafter.
21:45 Dr. John Delony? The reference point for my four-year-old to anchor himself into love and anchor himself into his own body, but also absorb loss, all came back to that goofy dog. And so I thought, oh my, the greatest gift I gave my child is to be with him in that moment.
22:03 Speaker 00 Right.
22:04 Dr. John Delony? And now we can go, remember the dog? Just like granddad.
22:09 Speaker 00 Right.
22:09 Dr. John Delony? All right. Remember the dog? That's like grandmother. Remember the dog?
22:12 Speaker 00 Those rituals.
22:14 Dr. John Delony? It's so boring.
22:15 Speaker 00 I always say when people go, I don't understand that. I'll go, think of it this way. When we have a birthday party, we get together and happy birthday is another way we say, I love you. And now that grandpa's died, or the dog died, we gather again at the end to say, I love you. That gathering, goodbye is another way we say, I love you. And I'll tell you, I don't know that I've talked about this on a podcast. Just it came up for me, so I'll say it. When my son died, my older son, Richard, I knew this was going to happen.
22:59 Speaker 00 And I have an amazing goddaughter who is
23:04 Speaker 00 the epitome of elegance. I mean, she went to school in London. She is naturally elegant in a way I won't like. When I'm with her, I'm like witch fork.
23:15 Dr. John Delony? No one's ever used those words to describe me.
23:18 Speaker 00 Always. She was always so elegant.
23:21 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
23:22 Speaker 00 When my younger son, David, died, we're at the funeral.
23:27 Speaker 00 We're done and all of a sudden the cemetery folks descend with the shovels. And they're gonna, you know, pack the dirt on the grave. And of course, my older son, Richard, was, no, no, no, no, no, that's me. He's gonna do it. And then, like, I knew that would be him. And then, in her most gorgeous black dress, my goddaughter picked up a shovel. And I'm like, that's, that's like a ritual that's like unforgettable.
24:02 Dr. John Delony? No.
24:03 Speaker 00 You know? And it's that saying goodbye. And you wouldn't think shoveling is a way to say goodbye and I love you. And one thing just to say, just since we're here about pet loss. After David died, I don't know,
24:22 Speaker 00 probably eight, nine months later, sweet dog of 17 years.
24:28 Dr. John Delony? Of course it did, of course.
24:30 Speaker 00 And people want to go, well, clearly that didn't count after David's death, or which was the worst? And I'm like, folks, there is no worst in this. These are two horrible events. They are two loves. I don't need to find a hierarchy so you can organize this in your brain. These are horrible events. A divorce is a horrible event for the person getting divorced. Betrayal is, pet losses. If the grief is real, if the love is real, the grief is real. There is no hierarchy in loss. Let that go.
25:08 Dr. John Delony? Oh, man. And we could go down a whole road. Thank you for sharing that. There's, I think that's,
25:17 Dr. John Delony? my personal belief is those are things that our bodies adapted over millions of years to, to learn how to process. And we have just outsourced all of it.
25:26 Speaker 00 Right.
25:27 Dr. John Delony? Even, even my grandmother's house had a room called the parlor, right? And now the Emmy van shows up, takes the body away. They take care of it. I get 30 minutes and I get maybe an open casket and then it's over. And all of that grief stays here. And I believe in my guts. There's something about shoveling. There's something about movement. There's something about that process that we've just stolen from ourselves.
25:52 Speaker 00 Emotions need motion.
25:53 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, oh, I like that. Say that again.
25:55 Speaker 00 Emotions need motion. I'll tell you, we feel bad. Every time we're giving tips, we say, you gotta go walk. And it's like, we go, we can't recommend walking again. And then a study comes out that says how walking is so amazing. And we're like, we feel like simplistic, like for God's sakes, we can't keep saying walk.
26:17 Dr. John Delony? Write a letter and go for a walk, man.
26:19 Speaker 00 So, but it needs, and just that, this workbook is taking the pain out of you and putting it on the paper.
26:26 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
26:26 Speaker 00 Let yourself see your pain on the paper.
26:30 Dr. John Delony? How do you talk to somebody who experiences grief because they've got cancer?
26:35 Dr. John Delony? And they're being betrayed by their own body. Or they have some sort of heart challenge. They've got a child with special needs. They've got a marriage that somebody violated the marriage and they're gonna work on it, but.
26:51 Dr. John Delony? There's always gonna be a sign of a crack in the foundation that's been, you can only see the repair. How do you teach somebody to grieve something that is still present in real time? Really, what we're grieving is a picture of what we wanted to be true that no longer is true.
27:06 Speaker 00 Correct. You know, that is really sitting with the imperfections of life.
27:12 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
27:14 Speaker 00 We wanted a perfect marriage. That's gone.
27:19 Dr. John Delony? It is.
27:19 Speaker 00 That's gone.
27:20 Dr. John Delony? Right.
27:21 Speaker 00 That's gone. Okay. And, you know, whether there's, there's a million analogies out there, whether it's the broken vase.
27:31 Dr. John Delony? Sure.
27:32 Speaker 00 That, you know, the vase can be put back together. Whether it's a broken bone becomes stronger after the break. You know, I, this is a really hard one. Would I rather have a perfect, good marriage? Or a real one? And I think I opt for perfect, good.
27:55 Dr. John Delony? Right.
27:56 Speaker 00 But that doesn't seem to be possible. I mean, we're all gonna have.
28:02 Dr. John Delony? We're gonna hurt people.
28:03 Speaker 00 Like, listen, everyone I know struggles with something. I promise you, everyone who has the perfect marriage, there's something there.
28:14 Dr. John Delony? Doesn't.
28:15 Speaker 00 There, you know, and look, it may not be the biggest infidelity, but there's something there. You know, uh, all relationships, it's all pretty imperfect. And when we can allow that, and it kind of goes back to, you know, like, I need to keep up with the Joneses. No, you don't.
28:35 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
28:35 Speaker 00 No, you don't. It's all kind of imperfect to begin with.
28:39 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:40 Speaker 00 And so it is the experience of life. I mean, I always try to opt for authentic over good.
28:51 Speaker 00 Or over great.
28:54 Dr. John Delony? That's truth over mirage, right?
28:56 Speaker 00 Right, but I'd rather have something that's real. You know, and, and one of the things that I, it's, it's funny because it was an Oprah producer that did this for me. I used to call, you can imagine this. I used to get the pre-interview calls and they would hear me, talk to me, and then they go, thanks very much, and they would not choose me. Same producer.
29:22 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
29:23 Speaker 00 And I remember finally saying to this producer, and she changed my life. I said, why do you never choose me? And she said to me, because you're the grief expert. And I said, I don't understand. And she goes, David, before we get to the pitch you're making, I really like you. And you don't understand, we don't want to know the grief expert. We want to sit down and have a beer with our buddy that just happens to know a lot about loss. And when you can let go of the illusion that you're our expert, we'll connect with you.
30:07 Speaker 00 Oh my gosh, what a favor she did for me. Cause she was really saying, cause I was like, early in my career. She was like, dude, take the suit off, let it go, like, just be you.
30:20 Dr. John Delony? I had that same gift here. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and what I found is my answers, my academies was a suit of armor.
30:30 Speaker 00 Right.
30:31 Dr. John Delony? Is the way I protected my, look how smart I am, look how smart I am. And one woman, one time in a siding line said, you know, you're the big brother we've never had. And I was like, that's the greatest compliment I've ever received in this world, right? Is, I'll tell you the truth, and you know, I love you. All right? It's both and. I have found it easier to grieve God's had a bigger plan. Or loss just happened. Or I don't understand cancer, it just is. All right? I have learned to grieve that.
31:06 Speaker 00 Right.
31:07 Dr. John Delony? What I personally continue to struggle with is, no, I did say that. I did hurt that person. How do you grieve? Grieve loss, relationship breakups? How do you grieve death when you did play a role? And I'm thinking of the parent who, here's where it comes to me most. There's an alcoholic abusive parent. The other parent didn't intervene in a way. And there's some sort of cascading event that ends up in their children experiencing some sort of poor relationship or addiction or some sort of challenges down the road.
31:52 Dr. John Delony? And as they heal and they begin to put two and two together, they say, "I didn't protect my kid from that abuser. I kept inviting that man into our home." Or I, right? How do you grieve when you did play a role?
32:10 Speaker 00 It's a huge question. Our mind would always rather be guilty than helpless. You want to blame.
32:19 Dr. John Delony? So it's about power.
32:20 Speaker 00 Everything on that moment. Someone died because of that moment. The betrayal happened because of that moment, whatever. You know, that was the moment. Most moments are complex with a lot of different factors. Now, for your one moment, if I was working with that person in the one moment, we would talk about the decisions you made were probably out of your wounds. Doesn't excuse you. Doesn't let you off the hook from anything. They were out of your wounds. They were out of your fears. They were out of the lowest part of you.
33:01 Speaker 00 You know, you've made mistakes, but so have I. And so that's where we have to begin. And then we also have to begin forgiveness.
33:11 Dr. John Delony? Forgiveness, yeah. And that's just simply the practice of saying, "I'm not going to carry that anymore."
33:17 Speaker 00 It's a, it's a lot of work. I often say forgiveness starts with a 30 day practice.
33:22 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
33:22 Speaker 00 Like people like, "I thought and it didn't work." I'm like, "That's not how forgiveness works."
33:26 Dr. John Delony? You gotta practice. It's a practice, it's a practice. Yeah. Okay.
33:29 Speaker 00 I have so much in here about guilt.
33:31 Dr. John Delony? I know, I know.
33:32 Speaker 00 There's like four different exercises I take. It's the biggest chunk of the book.
33:36 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
33:37 Speaker 00 And people can go right to this book. They don't have to have bought the original. They go right to this.
33:42 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
33:42 Speaker 00 All right.
33:43 Dr. John Delony? Last one.
33:43 Speaker 00 Yeah.
33:46 Dr. John Delony? I'm working through finding meaning years ago.
33:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
33:51 Dr. John Delony? And I read this part and I literally slammed it down.
33:57 Dr. John Delony? And I thought, David's right. And I don't like what you're saying.
34:03 Speaker 00 Great, great.
34:05 Dr. John Delony? And yet, this is me on the heels of years of working through what I think has become my, it's the greatest challenge. I think it's a gift and it's also one of my greatest challenges, which is
34:21 Dr. John Delony? what I would call empathetic rumination.
34:25 Dr. John Delony? I will sit on a feeling or a thing I've done and I will loop and I will loop and I will loop. And I will, my body will go back to that thing I said in seventh grade to that girl who said, I like you. And I embarrassed her in front of everybody. I still can feel that right now, how I hurt her. I can still go back to the things I've done and said to my wife that still haunt me, to the things I've said to myself. I can live in it. And then you had the audacity.
34:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, what did I say? God, what did I say? Let's hear it.
34:53 Dr. John Delony? To come out and write and so honest and truthful. With practice, you can control your thoughts. And at the end of the day,
35:03 Dr. John Delony? that parent who is just eating breakfast and that lightning bolt of that picture of their child in the casket. They can't control that lightning bolt, but they can control every thought after that. Or the person who finds out, you know, accidentally somebody's text message pop up on the family iPad. And there's some pretty gratuitous texts between your husband and his mistress.
35:30 Dr. John Delony? And that image flashes with him in bed with somebody else and it can't get out of your head. The idea that, yeah, it can.
35:39 Speaker 00 And the idea that like, it is heartbreaking that they betrayed you.
35:45 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
35:46 Speaker 00 In that affair, that night, those years, whatever it is.
35:51 Speaker 00 Oh, it's equally heartbreaking that you betray yourself every day.
35:58 Dr. John Delony? God, pisses me off.
36:00 Speaker 00 And you replay it. You replay it. No one betrays me like I betray myself.
36:07 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
36:07 Speaker 00 Now, here's the thing about this. When we talk about this, people go, wait, wait. But trauma, you don't have control. Absolutely. The images are going to pop up. You can't control those horrible things that are going to pop up.
36:27 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
36:28 Speaker 00 You control how long you stay there.
36:30 Dr. John Delony? That's it.
36:31 Speaker 00 How long you linger. I'll give you another example. A woman said to me, David, it's been five years. I cannot get the picture out of my mind of my child in the casket. And I go, of course, of course you can't, of course you can't. But it doesn't have to be where you live. I said, how often do you picture it? And she goes, every time my phone rings. And it was her screensaver.
37:03 Dr. John Delony? Oh, gosh.
37:03 Speaker 00 And I was like, oh, dear one, dear one, there's some help here. There's some hope, dear one. That's the, you're keeping that horrific moment that does not define your child. Their death does not define them. So we have control over the images on our phone and the images in our mind. We have control.
37:33 Dr. John Delony? So you mentioned something in, in this book, and it's an exercise that I think is incredibly instructive. And it's one of the, the classic gurus. I don't remember if it was, Adler's the one that comes to mind. But I remember a really profound statement that was, I thought if I took away my clients or patients' anxiety and depression, that they would be healed. And what I found is when I just took away their anxiety and depression, they were empty. And I love the exercise that you give, that it's not a matter of just saying, "Stop thinking about that." But it's the affirmative practice. "I am gonna have a picture on my phone of my child laughing their head off." "If I have chosen to stay in a marriage and rebuild something from the ground up after betrayal,
38:18 Dr. John Delony? "I'm gonna put a picture of us dying laughing together on my phone." "I have a picture of a really lovely memory of when I showed up for my wife." "So that when I'm sad and I haven't eaten well and I'm not sleeping and I'm exhausted and that..."
38:33 Speaker 00 Hungry, angry.
38:34 Dr. John Delony? That lightning bolt of, "Oh yeah, remember when?" It's always when I'm counseling somebody, I'm sitting with somebody on how to be a good husband and it's like, "Who do you think you are?" It's that, "Oh, I got a picture to replace it."
38:46 Speaker 00 And if I want my spouse to be committed to a healthy marriage, a healthy relationship, "I can't stay committed to the betrayal."
38:58 Dr. John Delony? I gotta go all in and risk getting hurt again.
39:01 Speaker 00 Absolutely.
39:02 Dr. John Delony? That's the only way, it's the only path.
39:03 Speaker 00 And that's the grace. And that's the grace. It's the grace and it's your only shot at a healthy relationship. We know, how many of us take the bricks "of the ruined moment in the relationship and try to use those bricks to rebuild the next relationship?"
39:20 Dr. John Delony? You gotta excavate and start over, man. Yeah. But similar, "You can stay
39:28 Dr. John Delony? "graveside, watching your daughter, your goddaughter shovel their... you can stay there."
39:35 Speaker 00 Or I can see she just had a baby. I can watch, "She just had a baby. There's new life." Absolutely horrible death and there's new life and I want to be present for both. I want to grieve fully and live fully. Some of us know how to attend to the grieving and not the living. Some of us know how to live and not attend the grief. I want to know how to do both.
40:04 Dr. John Delony? On behalf of my family and my friends and ancestors that I'm trying to bring peace to their grandkids, thank you.
40:12 Speaker 00 Oh, thank you.
40:13 Dr. John Delony? Thank you for dedicating your life to this. You're, I'm always nervous about people's body energy when they write something great and you meet them and it's a little bit, thank you for just being a graceful person.
40:24 Speaker 00 Oh.
40:25 Dr. John Delony? It's a blessing.
40:26 Speaker 00 You too, you too.
40:27 Dr. John Delony? Thank you, thank you, thank you.
40:28 Speaker 00 It's my honor, man. You're one of my people I like, I love watching you, I love listening to the podcast.
40:32 Dr. John Delony? You're a gift. Thank you, my brother.
40:34 Speaker 00 Right back at you.
40:35 Dr. John Delony? And I wish you, wish you much grace and then I can't wait to get you back.
40:37 Speaker 00 Thank you, I agree.
40:39 Dr. John Delony? All right, that was my conversation with the great David Kessler. If you were watching this on YouTube, you saw that I was taking notes throughout the entire conversation. And if you were listening to it, I hope that you learned a lot too. And if you were watching, I hope you learned a lot also. All of his stuff, his books, his website, everything is linked in the show notes. And again, I've got his Finding Meaning Workbook, Working Through the Six Stages of Grief. And there is a fake one going around on the internets. And so I told him that I would let all you all know that there's a fake one on the internets. If you get online to buy Finding Meaning the Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook, make sure it's actually by David Kessler. Thank you, everyone who joined us for this two-part conversation, and I can't wait to see y'all soon, right here on the Dr.
41:24 Dr. John Delony? John Deloney Show.
Previous My Husband and His Brother Got in a Fistfight Over Me Next Greatest Hits Vol. 3: John’s Favorite Calls of 2024 Page updated November 5, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated