The Anatomy Of Suffering: How to Function When Your Grief Takes Center Stage

you are listening to the Bey on the high road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 57 stay tuned welcome to Bey on the high road hi you guys how's everybody doing it's been all as you guys I know know it's been a week for me and maybe hopefully not as much for you hopefully your weeks have been going okay I know when we're dealing with something like alien you know we all have those kinds of weeks where things just don't seem like they could ever get better it seems like this might be it for me this might be all life is going to be and so I wanted to touch on that a little bit those of you that have been listening for a little while know that I recently lost a

dog my dog Pepper and I was sort of expecting her death and then unexpectedly lost my Nita my pig and she was an emotional support animal she was legitimately my support animal I know that there was like some controversy there for a while because people were taking advantage but she was legitimately I got her after my daughter left and I and I initially got her because I did not know how to deal with the grief I had this emptiness this void this need to Mother somebody or something and I couldn't do it with my daughter so I got myself a baby pig and she served o I'm going to cry I didn't want to go there but she was an amazing gift to me she gave me like provided me

purpose when I didn't have any you know this is not what I meant to do today but so yeah so she provided me a great sense of purpose and of meaning and an otherwise very dark time I was just leaving the Byron guy and that whole situation was a big mess right around the same time that I got Nita and so she just was there just like if maybe any of you can understand with any of your pets she was there through a really really dark time for me and really she saved my life I think because otherwise you know I don't know what I would have done I mean we always managed to get through it right but there were so many times where I think I've shared with you before where I was

considering not getting through it you know but it is amazing how when a portion of your story ends when a chapter closes comes to an end how often most often causes us to look back over that last chapter and then of course look forward and wonder what will be right and so yeah anyway I wanted to talk today about the difference between grief and suffering and pain basically and suffering and I am bringing this up because it is so close to home for me right now and maybe in a different way than it is for you right now well in fact I'm sure of it because we all experience it a little bit differently but I also right now I'm coming from talking about my pig the grief of you

know losing a loved pet animal which by the way sometimes I think is easier to love an animal than it is to love another human I don't necessarily think that there's a hierarchy to who we love and how we love them how we've been conditioned we tend to stack or grade measure oh well their loss isn't as Extreme as my loss or vice versa right we see this a lot in oure cases of alienation people think that our loss they categorize our loss as um not is much or conditional because we had a hand in it somehow the disenfranchise grief episode might be a good one to go back to for that but people tend to want to fit certain relationships into certain slots and they're all like on

this hierarchy of what what is considered the biggest greatest loss and then what is considered sort of minuscule I just don't know how well that serves any of us we do it naturally our brains do this as a way because we want to file categorize where we fit in have I experienced what they've experienced oh no theirs is much greater than mine or mine is much greater than theirs they don't know what they're talking about so first I want to clear something up I was reading over some of the the more recent episode titles and descriptions like the show notes just to make sure that what I'm doing is no fresh and new for you guys each time and I could see how you or somebody could

take my message on one of the episodes just by presentation as if alienation was supposed to happen to you as if there's nothing wrong with it happening and the alienating parent isn't at fault and this is just how things were going to go for you I just want to if anybody wrestled with that upon seeing it or maybe if you've gotten that message from me in the past I just want to let you know that in no way do I mean to suggest that alienation was supposed to happen and that you shouldn't fight it that force is bigger than you created this and you should just just lay down and take it and that the alienating parent shouldn't be held accountable that is not what I meant to

say at all never ever I don't believe that I guess what I always mean to say is that there are misguided misled people out there that do awful terrible very hurtful things and they're always will be those kinds of people do we leave them alone and let them keep being perpetrators and keep you know do we keep allowing them to hurt is a a completely separate issue than what I deal with you and I these episodes are entirely purposed in order to help you to heal yourself so that you can go do that in the best most effective efficient cost efficient way possible okay so there is the alienating party parties however it is for your situation the courts the judges the whole family

law industry or aspect of it and then there's you so when I am addressing you it is all about how to put aside distractions put aside unhealthful aspects and eliminate or at least minimize your suffering as much as possible I've come to believe that we suffer when we have pain about our pain I sometimes just call it dirty pain right we like muddy up the waters we have this greef and then we have pain about our grief and this is the stuff that I want to help you to minimize I don't think that we need to rush to get out or move from the base pain the base pain I'm going to assume that you you really truly when you're choosing it on purpose that you want that pain to be

there at least until you fully process through and sometimes most of the time that is an ongoing process you will process through some of that base pain the amount that you can access at the time and then more will sort of come in waves as you live throughout your life right but when we have the extra the dirty pain on top of the clean pain then we never can process the base paint we have too much on top of it and so that is what my goal is for this podcast this entire podcast is really all intended in order for you to get rid of the dirty pain or at least minimize so that you can get to your clean pain then use it to fuel you to grow you okay I know I've

explained that through out the podcast but I think that I needed to plainly point it out that it was the episode The you were built for this the one that I didn't do a video on I didn't reist to the whole episode but I know that the message at least on the front of it when you see it it actually had me react like huh what did I mean there and then I listened to the beginning of it and then I realized okay this is what it is I in no way do I mean that this was always supposed to happen let's just let them do what they do and you know then we just float along with all of the abuse and let it happen because it's supposed to happen not at all I want to help you

to help yourself because holy [ __ ] alienation is 100% debilitating at times yeah anyway okay so I think I've cleared that up so now I want to get into the suffering that we can cause ourselves by the thoughts that we think the bargaining with what has already happened pretty sure that all of you guys can relate to this no matter how far out you are from and how much healing you've done with your situations of alienation I think it's important to stress that the goal of life is not to get to happy I don't think it is it's not my goal and I don't know that it's ever a successful feat I don't know that it's a measurable go goal to have I think that once you got to where you

said you wanted to be I'll be happy when I get blah blah blah that when you get blah blah blah there will always be a condition on it yeah well I got here but either you give the credit away or there's another circumstance that's affecting the the goal of getting to that place and so there will always be something further ahead that will get you to the happy and then you get there and then it's not it and so you have to go a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more and then it's always life ends up being this like constant Chase for happy and it's fruitless and so that is why I truly believe that the goal is not to get out of the pain but maybe instead to realize

that the pain is here to get us to wherever it is that we're we're going right that the pain maybe is here to expand who we are add to our layers our textures our gooey insides the pain that we experience we can then task ourselves to share that with others to help them also experience their pain and then they share with the next person and the next person and the next person and that helps us all to grow as you know as a world as a community I guess right so so this week I have been in a greater amount of pain than I think I've been in in a while when we lose a child to alienation or otherwise when we lose a even a pet and I know people may get offended with me for putting child and

pet in the same category But please understand that I'm just there's a purpose for it and I do recognize that your children are much different than pets are okay I don't want to ruffle any feathers but when we lose a child child when we lose a pet when we lose a spouse even if it's not to a death but we lose them in you know a relationship they are no longer in our everyday life this has such a huge impact on us because it does it affects our everyday living and our patterns our rituals when we wake up what do we normally do and so you start missing all of these tiny little things that you maybe once used to resent or wish you didn't have to do for instance

again so I'll use Nita is that every morning she would wake me up with her squealing grunting and you know making a bunch of Racket every morning every morning without fail I hated it I would throw pillows at her while I was trying to sleep with my pillow over my head when she was waking me up at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday I used to make me crazy and this entire week I would have given anything to hear that squealing even in the middle of the night you know what I'm saying with my child getting her ready for school in the morning like the little mundane things that you really didn't appreciate while you were doing them but then when you can't do them all a sudden anymore unexpectedly it is

traumatic it feels like wait what this wasn't supposed to happen this wasn't supposed to be this way most times there is no warning very little warning anyway when it comes to alienation one day that your children were there with you and the next day they weren't and you were like what the [ __ ] is happening right and so I compare that to I think it's again no comparison with the hierarchy of grief but I do believe it's so similar and we hear this we read this all the time that this is so similar to an accidental death all of a sudden they're gone the brain is encoded in a specific way with certain patterns with certain expectations this is something that is physi iCal biological but those

habits imprinted on your subconscious and the way that you operate on autopilot if this is recent for you you're having to unlearn these expectations to do these specific things with your children and it can be challenging not just on an emotional level but on a physical and on a mental level as well okay so I want to recognize that that there's not just one aspect ECT to this alienation thing I know that you know this like you know with this part of your brain but I think it's helpful to hear it and I think it can be validating your brain and your body your physiology the way that the machine part of you works these habits developed over time and sort of grew

with you as your child grew and as needs grew and activities Incorporated one by one things were sort of stacked and built into your system imprinted into your system and so the unstacking and peeling off these layers of these daily activities and expectations it's exhausting my point with this is that it's going to take time it depending on how much time you have in between your child being home and your child not being home it's going to take time to unlearn specific habits and even just saying that it's going to take time to unlearn it my heart broke a little bit because I know that also acknowledging that that is what you're doing can feel scary and off-putting you might want to

reject that like no I don't want to unlearn those habits because I want those habits back and I get you I feel you on that and I think this is why we suffer so much when it comes to our situation of alienation because we know it is possible to have those experiences it could be possible our children are still on this Earth so it is a is entirely possible physically it could happen so we don't want to unlearn thoughts and feelings associated with our kids being home right I get that you do what's right for you and if you know that this encoding that is in your brain is causing you suffering too much suffering I think it's helpful to just do a pros and cons and like weigh out

what is worth it for you if you're feeling like [ __ ] and you want to stop feeling like [ __ ] like you're feeling a lot of pain and suffering and you are like I was just talking to a client yesterday who was like I can't seem to get myself to do anything classic signs of depression like I want to get in bed and I want to stay there and sometimes it feels physically impossible to move to get the things done that I need to get done if you're in that place well a couple things I mean if you do need to go see somebody then please please do that okay I think that that just goes I I'm saying it but I think I want you to assume that I always mean that take care of yourself if you need

to be on medication please do that okay don't not take your medication also it would be helpful if you didn't self-medicate if you weren't self- diagnosing and then medicating as you see fit too I mean it's your that's your call but please you got to take care of you so if you've been working with your doctor and you guys have a plan then make sure you're executing that plan okay and if you are at that place where you're like yeah I'm doing everything and I'm still here you hate the way you're feeling you aren't creating the kind of life that you want to live if you're there then I think it's really helpful to one like write it down on a piece of paper it takes 5 minutes

minutes like seriously just five minutes just do a take a like inventory if you will on what this suffering is costing you not to shame yourself just so that you're aware of what is being created here right by remaining in the suffering so just what is it costing you basically that's what it is it's like a cost inventory what is this suffering costing you and what is it that you want to create that you can't create because you're living in this suffering and then if you don't like like what you see on the paper and your suffering is causing you to be indebted to it to the point where you can't get over to the plus side of creating what you want then do a

few things okay one of them is very very simple have two three four five people you know just a handful of people that you can call whenever you need to just share with them and now the best way I found to handle this is I have I select very few people that I go to I let them know a long time ago and sometimes I do this before each conversation that I have that I want to be able to share with you without you commiserating with me I just want you to know where I'm at not because I need you to do anything not because I need you to say anything establishing that sort of exchange for your days that you need it means everything when you're going through something like grief and processing

through trauma just knowing that you have somebody to I don't want to say dump on because it's definitely not that but somebody to listen and knows what's happening with you if you haven't created that little network of people then do it they don't have to talk to each other if you don't want them to doesn't have to be like a committee a you committee at all just people you can call sometimes I'll discover what I really am feeling by just saying it to somebody else most of the time I I rarely want the other person to talk I'm like just let me just let me say this this is what's happening with me I don't want you to fix me I don't need to be handled I don't need to go and talk to

somebody else don't tell me what how to feel better I don't want to know how to feel better just know too that there are some people you know the people that you can do this with so just don't cause yourself the Pain by going to the people that you know can't resist so create a small group of people that you know you can sort of rely on or bounce stuff off of okay so that's one share it without wanting to change it two is maybe this actually should be one is just acknowledging it with yourself right like I like to go on a walk I like to be go outside where you know I can hear the breeze and through the trees and maybe if there's water you know like just I just want to kind of connect with

nature and clear my thoughts sometimes I will take my most of the time actually I will take my dog on a walk or a run I pop him in I've got a dog like a dog jogger I know I'm that person but I'll pop him in there and then just either go on a jog or walk and I have like a heart tohe heart with myself like I'm feeling like crap I don't feel good this last week the last time I felt this way was with my daughter where I had that anxiety that anxiety associated with like a sudden loss right grief I still have it right now it hasn't gone away and so this one always seems to feel feel a little bit more urgent and I've taken a lot of walks this week but I've just acknowledged it like I'm feeling

anxious right now this is me experiencing what all humans do at some point in their life right all all of us experience loss we all feel a little bit differently but I'm experiencing my own humanness I sort of state that for myself I take a deep breath because especially with anxiety the breaths help and I just tell myself this is you experiencing the ultimate of your humanness you're having anxiety a state right now and it's because you just lost one of the loves of your life right and then I just let it be I narrate it and sort of normalize it meaning like I humanize myself right because we find ourselves so much of the time when we're in any sort of discomfort we want to

move it away out of the way we want to push through it we want to get to the other side I can't wait till this is done I did this this week I wanted to just I can't wait to get out of this pain I just need this pain to go away and I caught myself saying it and I was like do I do I need this pain to go away no I don't I don't love it but would I want to be happy right now would I want to be feeling anything other than sadness and feelings associated with grief I don't think so I think I really wanted I have wanted and I still want to feel the exact amount of loss that I'm feeling the only thing that I still want to wish away is the blame that I have on myself right is the you should have

known and that I can continue to poke holes in so that brings me to the next thing that you can do separate out the circumstances like the facts of the situation from the your thoughts about the situation for me I had been Googling some of her symptoms a week ahead of time it never occurred to me that she was actually sick but there were Clues right and so I was telling myself yesterday the day before really actually like on Thursday Friday when it all happened when you sick I was telling myself that I wasn't paying attention that I should have known this was avoidable bargaining with it I know isn't going to bring my pig back isn't going to bring my daughter back it

doesn't help and what it does is it causes us to stay unprocessed it causes us to stay stagnant we don't get any healing done because we're so stuck in trying to get through all of this extra blame and guilting and shame that we can't get to the true slow sadness and grief that down there I say slow because that's kind of that is really truly for me anyway how I experience real loss it feels slow and heavy and like not urgent not like well you should have done this and this should have happened if you only did this and that is you know the pain on top of the pain that deflects from the real stuff so separating out what is the problem right now what am I telling myself oh I'm telling myself

that I could have avoided it if I think about it logically it's not really what I want to be in pain about what is that going to do that's just going to cause more pain on top of it could I learn something from I could have avoided it yes but in the moment when I'm doing all of that I'm not trying to learn anything I'm really just causing more pain and then sitting in that pain does that makes sense so if you are truly trying to learn something from it so that you don't repeat that same thing again then take the lesson and move forward so separate out your thoughts and your and the circumstance right so to ask yourself what am I upset about right now I'm upset because I know that I could

have changed blah blah blah blah blah and then you want to ask yourself is that really what I'm upset about is that really what I want to be upset about what is the circumstance the fact of the situation okay so this all came on because my kiddos not here with me because my hearing got put off for another two months fill in the blank there okay and so look at that with no adjectives just the facts of it the story that you're attaching to the facts is really what's probably causing you the most undue pain the suffering so that's causing you to not process the stuff that matters also if you feel like well I try to get things done in my day and I just can't I just end up going to

bed get distracted and I end up going through old pictures old Facebook posts old emails and I go down these rabbit holes and I get stuck occasion after occasion and then I never get anything done I'm not creating anything more I'm just stuck in what has already happened sometimes it's helpful to just override your system so just like pay bit of attention for a second like acknowledge it okay I know that we think we would feel better if we just went to sleep I know my eyes are closing right now and I feel feel exhausted and I'm telling myself that maybe I'm getting sick and I should just go to sleep and I should just take care of my body this is one that I used to use a lot I just need to

take care of my body not to say now listen so long as you've been going to sleep you've been getting a good at least 7 hours a night you're not really getting sick but you're just telling yourself you are this is like a little test for yourself the best thing to do is get out of your house get out out of your house go out out in the sun get some sunlight on your face and spend at least 15 minutes outside doing something talk to a neighbor don't talk to a neighbor maybe you just walk whatever if you can get out of your house for over 15 minutes maybe at 30 minutes and if you come home and you feel better than when you left then you know that you're not sick and then you can continue on

with your day okay and then you just do the things anyway even though your brain is telling you that you're tired you just do them anyway okay that's like I said that is supposing that you have been actually sleeping and doing all the things and you just don't know why you're so tired right you just do it anyway you just allow yourself to feel like crap physically while you do the thing the reason why your body is doing this is one because it may be habit for it to feel like this two you could still have a bit of depression going on and so long you're as you're treating it otherwise if you need to then you the only way you will get out a feeling like this is by putting yourself in different

situations so do it anyway is what I'm saying okay do the thing maybe you don't do it balls to the wall and like you know Full Speed Ahead and like mow down everything in your way as you're feeling like [ __ ] right but you go and you put one foot in front of the other okay shower shower every day every day even when you don't want to I remember I would go days without showering I'm a pretty clean person and I would in the middle of depression I would go days Days sometimes over a week without showering it was awful and you don't even realize it doesn't even bother you when you're in a depression it's the weirdest right and then a shower feels amazing when you finally get yourself in

there but yeah every day shower cleanliness another thing that you could do is to clean something clean your areas if you go out to work then clean your space at work just it doesn't have to be everything you don't have to like deflect and put all your to-dos off and like deep clean your whole house you don't have to Veer off your schedule too much but if you're feeling like [ __ ] like life is a bit out of control in other ways then it does help tremendously for me anyway to tidy up simplify my space that I'm going to be working at for sure I say that as right now there are bills and like a couple glasses in front of me it's a little bit of a mess kind of right here I've been

doing the whole car shopping thing and actually I decided today on a completely unrelated note you guys know my whole car shopping thing actually I have now gone today or tomorrow I'm not sure is the seventh day of the like extended extended lease and I finally decided this morning why don't I just buy out my lease why am I going through all of this hassle when I just love my car I love my car but I still have to like now go through the whole car buying process again so it's kind of the pain I still have to come up with the down payment still have to do all the things right but I anyway so I might just do that I have until tomorrow to figure it out but back to where I was creating some like

like a peaceful clean clear space for you to work at to be at or you know if you're not depending on what you're doing throughout the day maybe sometimes it's cleaning out your junk drawer cleaning out a junk drawer can be so therapeutic oh it's amazing it makes me feel so much better I I I mean I'm all for doing the whole maray condo like on you know all of your drawers and I have to do that I'll keep it up for like a year or so and then I find after a year I have to redo and then whatever so and I'm coming up on that time for my own self but yeah a good cleaning of your your space and like I said you can just do many sessions so that it feels doable and not further overwhelming this can be

call me it can feel cleansing right and when we're going through something feeling the emotions like loss and the grief this cleansing and purging of unneeded things clutter is I think some of the best simple manageable tasks that you can do okay so yeah that's what I have for you you guys just know suffering doesn't have to be and the way that you you solve for that is to figure it out separate your circumstances from your thoughts what are the facts here what am I telling myself that I am suffering about and if that is the like I was doing this past week and I did with my daughter I still sometimes fall into with my daughter if I would have known if I just wouldn't have been with

that guy why didn't I see the signs you know I did I still do that find these beliefs that are you know I thought I actually dealt with and I thought that I poked holes in and enough and dropped I'll still find one it's like a one just will just like pop up like see I'm still here and then I just have to take it and compassionately be like is that true like how could I have known back then I just kind of poke holes in it and be like give myself the utmost compassion and understand that I I am a human being experiencing all of my humaness and of course hindsight is 2020 of course it is I have so much information now I didn't have that information back then or I wasn't able to access or

process that information the same way is effectively as I am today right of course it makes sense hindsight now I know what they're capable of what I'm capable all of the things right so yeah my message is always just to again to clarify my messages always to help you to to get to the pain that you are the true pain that you might need to experience in order for you to grow yourself to the place where you are the most fit to tackle or address handle move forward from where you're sitting does that make sense so you may go back and and fight in court you may become an activist against alienation start a non profit you may do something like I have done and decided to create purpose from

it and help others that have been through what you've gone through or you may decide that you don't want to do anything at all with it that you want to close this chapter that you don't want to have to talk about alienation anymore that you don't want to have to go back to court that you never want to see the person that's alienating your child from you again maybe even that you don't want to see your child right now or again you know this is all none of it's bad none of it's wrong you're going to experience your situation exactly how you were supposed to and my job is what I've purposed myself to do is to help you get there so that you're doing it intentionally right that this is what

you want to do this is how you want to be going forward now that you have experienced alienation My Hope Is that I'm able to help you to stop bargaining and arguing with what has already been it happened so of course I think that you are built for this you are built for this and you are built to overcome this so anyway that is all I have for you I hope you guys have a lovely lovely week and I will see you next okay take care guys thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where we take the concepts that you hear about here

and using a logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to beyond the high road.com see you soon