Communicating about Grief with Nick Gaylord

In this conversation, Michelle Passoff and Nick Gaylord explore the often-taboo subject of grief, discussing its various forms beyond the loss of loved ones, including job loss and loss of independence. They emphasize the importance of talking about grief, the impact of community grief, and the necessity of seeking support. The discussion aims to destigmatize grief and encourage open conversations about it as a vital part of healing and mental wellness.

Takeaways

-Grief is not just about losing loved ones; it encompasses various losses.
-Society often teaches us to avoid discussing grief, but this is harmful.
-Talking about grief can help in processing emotions and healing.
-Grief can have physical and mental health impacts if not addressed.
-There is no set timeline for grieving; it varies for everyone.
-Community grief can affect us even if we don't know the individuals involved.
-It's important to remember and talk about those we've lost.
-Support systems, including friends and therapists, are crucial during grief.
-Everyone experiences grief differently; it should be recognized and validated.
-Seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Grief and Its Importance
04:30 Understanding Different Types of Grief
09:34 The Importance of Talking About Grief
14:30 Community Grief and Its Impact
19:29 Resources and Support for Grieving

Stay connected and inspired—follow me on social media!

Website: https://decluttering55plus.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decluttering55plus

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/decluttering55plus

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/decluttering55plus\

And also don’t forget to subscribe on my YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/@Decluttering55plus

Discover practical wisdom to simplify life—check out my book:

Decluttering 55+: Wisdoms to Create a Legacy, Not a Mess

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Decluttering-55-Wisdoms-Michelle-Passoff/dp/B0DY88FQBS/

Transcript

Michelle 0:34

Welcome once again to Decluttering 55 Plus with Michelle Passoff, the place to come if you're interested in clearing a path to aging powerfully. One of the topics that people oftentimes sweep under the carpet as they age is the prospect that they're going to die, or even worse, that someone we love will pass away. Then what do we do? How do we cope with grief? Well, today we're going to talk about that with Nick Gaylord. Nick is the host of a podcast called Grief is not a Dirty Word. He has taken it upon himself to put a spin on talking about grief and transforming the topic from being taboo to being an important element of healing and mental wellness. One of the things that we're apt to learn in this conversation is that grief is not an emotion that is exclusive to the loss of a loved one, but is a feeling that we're confronted with in various circumstances in life. So let's get to it. Without further ado, let's bring Nick on to help us explore. Welcome, Nick.

Nick Gaylord 1:33

Thank you so much, Michelle. So good to see you.

Michelle 1:36

Well, first and foremost, let me ask you, why in the world did you choose grief as the topic to talk about on a podcast?

Nick Gaylord 1:44

The main reason I chose grief is because it's not a mainstream topic. I didn't want to choose a topic that are there's a hot button issue or something that's entirely overdone in podcasts. I didn't want to go with politics or religion or sports or true crime because I think that there are, you know, there were entirely too many podcasts out there about those topics. And I know that some of them can be divisive. I know some of them can be intriguing. I know some of them can probably get me a ton of followers really quickly. It just seemed too easy and it didn't seem worth that kind of effort. It didn't seem like I was, I didn't feel like I was going to put in enough effort if I was going to do one of those topics. I have had personal experience dealing with grief and loss. And I decided, well, I thought about it for a long time before starting it and realized this is something that we just don't talk enough about. It's something that everybody deals with. And if you haven't had a major kind of loss in your life, if you haven't dealt with it yet, the only way you're not going to deal with it is if you die before it happens, and then it'll be somebody else's problem. But otherwise, you're going to deal with it if you haven't already. So let's talk about it because mainstream society says not to talk about it. And that's exactly why I want to.

Michelle 2:56

Why do you think people avoid talking about it?

Nick Gaylord 2:59

Sorry, did you say what about it to the avoid or why? They avoid talking about it because it's uncomfortable. It makes other people uncomfortable. It's it we have been taught, I know at least I have, and pretty much everybody that I know who's roughly around my age agrees that growing up, we were taught by society, by the our parents, by the adults that raised us, by the generation of adults that raised me and my generation, we shouldn't be talking about this. It's it's when something happens, it's done, it's over with. You just need to move on. You need to get over it. That's what we were told. And it's a load of garbage. You it's not something that you just need to get over because if you try to just push it out of your mind, how well does that work for you? It doesn't. It stays there until you talk about it, until you process it. On whatever level you're going to process it, it isn't going anywhere. It's always going to be the elephant in the room until it's not. And the only way to avoid that is to talk about it.

Michelle 3:59

Physical impact on you, I would imagine. It can make you make you sick mentally and physically.

Nick Gaylord 4:05

Mentally and physically. There have been studies that show that this kind of stress actually affects your physical. We all know it affects your mental, but it also has effects on your physical health. If you don't deal with it, the the stress it can cause problems in your brain, it can cause problems in your heart. It can just it can raise your blood pressure. Why let it? Why not just look things nothing in life is easy. If it was, everybody would do it. But that doesn't mean that it's a reason to avoid it ever. We we have to get past this fear of these things.

Michelle 4:44

When we talk about grief, sure. We're talking about the loss of a person in our lives a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, uh a husband, a wife. Um but that's not if I understand you correctly, when you talk about grief, that's not the only thing you talk about. Um how else can we grieve besides the loss of someone close to us?

Nick Gaylord 5:04

You're right. It's far from the only thing that we talk about in my show. The the other grief is grief can be associated with any kind of a loss. It can be the loss of a job, of a friendship, of a marriage, of a pet, uh, of of an identity, of independence. Uh like think of if if we know someone who's maybe a little bit older in our lives, if they have suffered an illness or a fall and they broke their hip or, you know, if they're bedridden or whatever, and they can't take care of themselves anymore, that's a loss of independence. Nobody's happy about losing their independence. There's, I mean, there's whether it's grief or depression, whatever it is involved, there's a loss there that has to be dealt with, whether they want to or not. But everything else, if you lose your job, I mean, I have just I've been dealing with that for close to the last year where I've been out of work and been desperately trying to find a job. And I actually just finally yesterday signed a contract for a new job, and it's a hell of a relief to finally have. Thank you so much. I haven't even had a chance to tell you about it. What's that?

Michelle 6:04

I'm gonna take credit for that.

Nick Gaylord 6:05

You should, absolutely. And so that is something that's amazing, but um something that we that my wife and I recently experienced about two and a half months ago. We lost our cat, who we had for almost 20 years. We don't have human children. We tried for years, it didn't happen. So our cat has always been our baby. And we lost her right before Thanksgiving, and we were both just absolutely heartbroken over. And yes, I understand it's not a human, and they don't go out and get jobs, they don't live as long as we do. But you know what? That is still she's our she was our family, and she always will be our family. Like we don't say what, like she always will be, she's what made us a family. Like we've we got her two days after we got married. That is a huge loss for us. And so many other people that I know that have lost pets, it is a massive deal for them. Like that's all relevant in the world of grief. Just because it some people say it's just a pet, that doesn't mean that doesn't lessen the blow. Like it it might be just a pet, but to the person who lost a pet, that's part of their world.

Michelle 7:03

So, what is the best way to um approach it? And if you're approaching the loss of a person versus a pet versus a job versus um the loss of independence or a circumstance, a move to a different city could be a loss. Um is there is there a prescription for how you deal with it, given uh the type of loss that it is? Or how do how do you even begin to deal with loss?

Nick Gaylord 7:30

I can say there's definitely no prescription. If there was, then I wouldn't need to have a podcast, and there probably wouldn't be nearly as many therapists as there are. Um, there's excuse me, there's no one size fits all solution. When it comes to dealing with the loss of a person, for instance, the best one of the best things to do is talk about it. And for the person who has experienced the loss, don't avoid the topic. Like if you go to a wake or you go to a funeral or even afterwards, so many people are afraid to bring up the person who has died. And honestly, that is the one thing, generally, that people, excuse me, people who have experienced that loss directly are craving because you know, when when the wake happens and everybody's there, and then the funeral happens and everybody's there. But then after that, everybody goes back to work and back to their lives. That person's name stops being said. And that is what the person misses the most. They miss people just talking about it. Like I can't tell you how many times I've recently, I've, you know, in the last few years, I've experienced somebody that I knew lost somebody. All they want is to just talk about the person. They want other people to talk, whether it's just, hey, tell me a story about so-and-so, or you know, remember that time when you know you and so-and-so did whatever. That's not going to upset a person. Like it people frequently will use the excuse of, I'm afraid it's going to remind them that they died. If you've lost anybody in your life, do you ever, ever envision a scenario where you're going to need to be reminded that that person is dead? Never.

Michelle 9:00

So let me ask you this, Nick. Um, is it better to talk do you better to talk about that person or how you're feeling about the loss or both?

Nick Gaylord 9:12

I think it's better for both. For the person who whether it's the person who directly experienced the loss or like say, like say you, if you if you lost your husband and I'm your friend or I'm your brother and I'm going to talk to you about it, I I think that you would want to have be able to have the conversation, but also knowing that somebody else would want to have the conversation. So like what you're feeling as the spouse isn't what I'm going to be feeling necessarily as the friend or the the sibling-in-law. So they don't need there doesn't need to be a comparison. It's it's not a a competition for whose grief is worse or whose is more relevant. Grief is grief, and it all needs to be recognized and experienced and honestly celebrated. The person who is gone, they need to be remembered, they need to be talked about. And there should never be the feeling of shame or embarrassment or anything around talking about them. Like if if somebody doesn't want to talk about them, then they won't. But if you want to have the conversation, then have the conversation. If if I go up to you and say, hey, let, you know, I remember that time when you know you and and so-and-so were, you know, we were all out together and we're doing this. If you're not comfortable having that conversation, then you'll say, you know, I appreciate it, but I'm I'm just not ready to have the conversation. But if you are ready to have the conversation, then it will start. It'll it might open up the flood case and we might have a great time. And after that, yes, he's still going to be gone, but we'll we we will have had that conversation. We will have talked about it, we've kept his memory alive. And that I think is what a lot of people who are dealing with grief over the loss of a person want is for their memory not to die. I've had conversations with people about how there are two times that a people that a person dies, when their heart stops beating and when their name stops being said. And that's what a lot of people try to avoid is the second one.

Michelle 11:03

I was listening to the news the other day and another kind of grief um occurred to me that I had never thought of before, and that's community grief. Like when something happens in the world where um it strikes you, the loss strikes you, like um you know, the killings in Minnesota or a war in Gaza or uh Ukraine, or you hear um of a public n somebody you might not know directly, but it's a community loss. What do you say about that? It was awakening for me, like you know, I'm experiencing um you're 100% right.

Nick Gaylord 11:42

And whether it's the war in Ukraine or the killings in Minnesota, whether we're talking about Renee Good or talking about Alex Pradi, I didn't know either one of them, but I definitely have my feelings about what's going on there, and so does everybody else.

Michelle 11:54

You don't have to know the person to recognize not an intellectual opinion about the political situation, but it's not right.

Nick Gaylord 12:03

It's not about the political. And this is also why I don't do a podcast on politics, because that would, you know, that would start World War III in itself. Um I don't want it to be a divisive conversation. I want it to be relevant. And as far as that kind of communal loss, yeah, it it's it's not just that Renee Good was killed, it's not just that Alex Preto was killed, it's not just that other people in other situations are being killed. It is the it is everything that's behind it, and it's honestly it's it's it's not just the grief of the person, it's it's the event, it's what it means. It in this case, it's what it I think it means for everything right now that's going on in this country. And again, I know we're not going to get into that, but uh to me, that's what that means. It's it's what is going on in this country right now, at least in those two instances that are really wearing on people, that are making people say, what in the hell is going on in this world? So yeah, because people don't know how to process this. And at this point, you've got people on two sides. One of it's an outrage, and two, it's justified. And again, we're not gonna get into either of those, but that's pretty much where this world is going.

Michelle 13:11

You know, it's it's to look at the whole um subject of grief in a broader sense than we may have looked at it. And here's another question I want to ask you, since this is a conversation you dwell in with a lot of people a lot of the time. And that is, is there a length of time you should give yourself?

Nick Gaylord 13:29

No, you should not give yourself, don't put a week or a month or a year or whatever on it. You grief is going to take as long as it takes. I will say that you you will pro you as the person experiencing it, on whatever level you're experiencing, and I don't mean you, I mean one. Um, you will you will begin your grieving process starts almost immediately. You're part of processing it, that's where it it gets a little gray area. Like some people will start immediately, some people wait months or years. I I think Before they even start before they even start you face it as it's happening, or just on some level you always face it while it's happening, but also the you you you go back to your lives, especially like if you're if you lose a spouse and you have kids together, you do what you need to do for your kids and to I guess get through the day and get through life and be a parent for them. But sometimes that is an excuse that people use to like I I can't deal with this right now. I I have to take care of my kids, I have to do this, I have to work, I have to pay the bills, I have to do, I have to, I have to, I have to. And all it's doing is kicking the can down the road. Because when you don't process what you're internalizing, it's it just sits there and it grows and it mag it the magnitude increases until you begin to have the conversation. And I'm not saying that having one conversation fixes it, but what I am saying, what I have experienced with others, with myself, is that just starting the conversation is going to help more than you realize. It's not going to fix everything in one conversation. But if you it think of it like a dam. If you just like poke a little hole in the dam and a little bit of that water can come through, it relieves a little bit of the pressure. Until you do that, until you have number one conversation, all that pressure continues to build. It it's or like a think of it like a pressure cover.

Michelle 15:27

Can you wait too long to start talking about it with other people or sharing their feelings about what they experienced? Can you wait too long to start that process?

Nick Gaylord 15:37

Oh, I think you can absolutely wait too long. And I think when you wait too long, I think the your mental health and your physical health will begin to suffer. And when that happens, yeah, you you you've you've probably waited too long.

Michelle 15:49

Well, who where should you go if you're not expressing yourself and you go, you know what, I'm not expressing myself. Maybe I should talk to somebody or I am expressing myself and I can't get rid of the feeling. Right. Um, what are the resources that you can tap into to support you in um ushering the most critical um time of pain?

Nick Gaylord 16:09

That's a great question. And there are so many resources out there. There are gul therapists galore. Uh uh when I was dealing with uh my dad passing away almost five years ago and the anger that I felt toward him, uh, I didn't start it until probably four or five months afterwards when I realized, well, actually, when my wife pointed out that my anger was starting to really uh, you know, help me to become a little bit unglued. And she said, I think you really need to talk to somebody. I went, I think it was Sondermind uh to online portal. You like all the all the therapists are virtual. You can go there. There's Sondermind, there's BetterHelp. There's if you have if you want to find somebody locally in your neighborhood, and I will say this: if you do decide to find a therapist, find somebody based on the specific issues that you're dealing with. You don't go and find a therapist based on the mutual sports teams that you guys like because the the sports teams don't matter. You are looking for a therapist because you want someone who can help you with your issue. You don't have to go to a therapist because a lot of people associate the word therapist or psychiatrist or shrink or whatever word you want to use with taboo, with bad, with I'm broken, with what's wrong with me. That's not the case. I think that everybody should be in therapy at one point or another in their lives. It can really help. It helped me, and it's helped so many people that I know. You can also talk to, I mean, you can go to a podcast. Look at me. Look at you can people have come onto my podcast. Most of the guests that have come on my show have talked about an issue that they've talked about before. A few of them have talked about their grief and their issues for the very first time. And I'm honored to be part of um I I'm honored to be able to hold that space for anyone, whether they've told it once or a hundred times. Is it better?

Michelle 17:54

Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Nick Gaylord 17:55

No, I'm sorry. I was gonna say, talk to a friend, talk to a coworker. I've had a lot of people of a lot of coworkers that over the past 20 years that have come up to me who I've known well at work that I knew just something wasn't right, and they've come up to me like, hey, um, I know this has nothing to do with you, but I'm kind of going through some crap. I just need to get some stuff off my chest. Can can we go talk for a few minutes? Like it's it's nothing about you. It's stuff that I've got to deal with.

Michelle 18:21

It's just not something you necessarily think of going to a coworker.

Nick Gaylord 18:26

Right. They just say, I just need somebody to talk to for a few minutes. Can we go talk? And I say a hundred percent. Whether it's we go in a conference or we go to lunch. The the every conversation like that that I've ever had, the common denominator was where the person always said, Thank you. This helped so much. Whether it led to therapy or it just led to having other conversations. Some cases it did lead to therapy. And honestly, that's amazing. But at least it started the conversation. It started a conversation in a narrative that they were afraid to start because they felt like something was wrong with them. They felt like they couldn't do it. They weren't adequate or whatever the reason was, they felt like they couldn't do it. But they did, and it changed their worlds.

Michelle 19:07

So it what it comes down to is you don't have to be alone with your grief. Is that what you're saying? So I we don't have a lot of time today, but whether or not you're talking to a friend, a coworker, a family member, whether you're talking uh one-on-one or you're talking in a group, the idea is uh from what I hear you say is uh not to keep it to yourself.

Nick Gaylord 19:26

Um not to keep it to yourself. You you're right. You do not have to be alone in grief. And honestly, you shouldn't be alone in grief. It doesn't have to be with a person who is impacted as intensely or even as close to intensely as you were. It can, it can, and sometimes it should be somebody who is a completely neutral party. When we when you were and I were at Podfest um a couple of weeks ago, a lady had asked me, she said, I have some people in my inner circle, my close family, that I I've been going through some stuff and I've tried talking to them, but they're just not a valuable resource for me. Like, what am I doing wrong? Like, what is what how can I get them to be the person that I need to talk to?

Michelle 20:04

And my answer to her was the most important thing is um whatever you do, take care of yourself. That's all we're gonna have time for today, Nick. And it won't be the last time, I'm sure, that we speak. And I'd like to hear uh from the audience out there what your experiences have with grief, and we'll share it with Nick and we'll get them back on and we'll address your concerns and um needs. I want to thank you for coming on the show and giving us uh the notion of taking a positive spin on the feelings and emotions on the subject of greed. I hope this is just the beginning of that conversation. Me too, Michelle.

Nick Gaylord 20:39

Thank you so much.

Michelle 20:43

Don't hesitate a minute to tune in to his show at griefisnotadirtyword.com for his weekly lineup of conversations. For news and information about what's coming up on this podcast, don't wait a minute longer to go to our website, which is www.decluttering55plus.com. Hit the let's connect button and sign up to receive our notifications about the great guests we'll be featuring on our podcast, as well as uh decluttering 55 plus live events and special happenings. It's never boring. We're always talking to somebody interesting, experts, authors, geeks, and authorities, and everyday people about next level clutter, areas of life that be confronting or confounding as the years go by will illuminate subjects of health, technology, social relationships, memoir writing, decisions about where to live and what to do next in life, financial and legal matters, and even final arrangements. Like I said, it's never dull around here, so be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and even LinkedIn so we stay in touch. In the meantime, just remember that action makes all the difference. Thanks for being with us today, and until we meet again, have a clutter free day.