Ep 23 - Winter Solstice, Grief and New Light - Interview with Emily Bingham
2020 has been such a hard year for everyone. But also, one thing we’ve learned through this series and what you’ll hear today is that in grief, there is hope.
Grief can bring us meaning. Grief can help bring clarity. And while grief is hard - so, so hard, it can also give us celebration.
We also finish with our last interview on grief with founder of moveTHRU, Emily Bingham. Emily is a fitness professional, mother of two, and widow as of March 2019, when her husband passed away from Uveal Melanoma.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Mary : Quick reminder that our good grief giveaway is coming to a close here soon. We will announce the winner on December 29th. This winner will receive $750 worth of grief support, including an eight week online course with move through grief, a copy of the book modern loss, a 45 minute coaching session with psychotherapist Gina, as well as a bag of artisan coffee or tea. Thank you again to our interviewees who participated and donated their time and resources so generously so that someone who could really use some extra support in this time as they work with their grief, will be able to benefit from this incredible package. Go to our Instagram page at thirdplacepod to check out the details. And please share it with someone that you know could potentially benefit as well.
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Mary : We welcome you to explore the third place with us.
David : It is an invitation to the gray space, a space where deeper connections are fostered through challenging, empowering and engaging dialogue.
Mary : You will walk away with a deeper understanding of self equipped to engage with others in life's complex conversations.
David : Thank you for listening.
Mary : We invite you into the third place. As we close up our four part series on grief we wanted to give one last shout out to our partnership with covituary. Covituary.org is a free online memorial site that allows friends and family to be together virtually to celebrate the lives of those last to COVID-19 over the last year. As Megan, one of the co-founders says, COVID-19 has taken an incalculable death toll and has altered our world in ways we could have never imagined. We've personally seen the pain that comes from postponing funerals and memorials for those we love and we are proud to offer a free safe place for people to pay tribute to their loved ones. She puts it perfectly and we are so honored that we were able to bring out this work through covituary.org. We hope that this four part series has been helpful. Thank you to covid.org for supporting us the third place
David : Today is December 22. It's the first new day, the day after the winter solstice the darkest day of the year. In Cincinnati, today we will have three more seconds of sunlight. Tomorrow six, then 10, and December 25 we’ll have 14 more seconds. In Boulder where Mary records. She's just a touch more north. Three seconds longer today, then seven then 11 then 15. For the next six months, each day will bring more light as we wrap up 2020, we are also finishing up our series on grief. And today we're interviewing Emily Bingham. Emily is a fitness professional mother of two and as of March 2019, a widow when her husband passed away from uveal melanoma, a rare cancer that affects approximately 2,000 people annually. As Emily started to rebuild her life as a single mom and head of household, she found herself overwhelmed by grief and paralyzed by the reality of her new normal. Leaning on her movement background as a former ballerina and current spin instructor. She turned to fitness to cope with grief. While verbalizing her feelings wasn't always easy, she was able to manage her emotions by moving her body. So in December of 2019 she founded moveTHRU. MoveTHRU helps adults who've experienced the loss of someone special in their lives cope with grief through exercise. It's like group grief support. But instead of talking about grief, participants move through it. Emily strives to connect anyone who is grieving to provide them with a safe and supportive space to experience their emotions and empower them to move forward from their loss. So why did we end this year talking about grief? I love how Gina responded to her first question on the last episode. So why did you specialize in grief and her response? Because it was so much fun. Of course it's not fun, but it's necessary. And also one thing I think we've learned through this series and and some of what you'll hear today in grief, there is hope. 2020 has been such a hard year for everyone. Let me say that again. There has not been one person who has not been negatively affected by the harshness of this past year. Through this series we have learned that grief can bring us meaning. Grief can help us bring clarity. We can see through the trees, we can see beyond ourselves and identify what is really important. Grief gives us celebration. While of course, grief brings immense pain. It's the pain that also forces us to realize the love of who or what we have lost. It's all still hard, so, so hard. And it's cyclical, the hard moments are still going to come in waves. In those waves, we will cherish memories, who will cry, and feel lonely. We will pick ourselves up even when we don't want to. We will rest. Someday, we will hug dear friends again. I'll be happy when I can do even the simple act of shaking the hand of a new friend. Whoever thought that was something to savor and cherish. 2020 and all of its fury shows that we have worked to do, just like the fact that today is the first day of new light, we are still just heading into the cold of winter, January and February will still bring winter hardships. And we're going to go into the hard places too. The work of the third place, it's just beginning. We want to equip ourselves with tools for creating safe dialogue and deepening our connection to one another. In January, we will begin unpacking, knowing more of ourselves as we begin to wrestle with how to have those conversations in the gray. The more we know of ourselves and how we process, think, feel and communicate. The more we might just learn how to hold space for people who are different from us. 2020 ends leaving us with so much work to do. We grieve the pain of this past year. But we also hope and look ahead to what can come. Each day brings new light. Everything that we must work on we will work on, we will make progress and move forward. In the darkness of the night. Look to the sun. Tomorrow is brighter than today. Let's all look ahead to the sunrise and clean to tomorrow's light
Mary : We are welcoming our guest Emily today and really eager to hear your story. And thank you so much for coming on board. So Emily, can you tell us a little bit you know about yourself and your relationship to grief?
Emily : Sure. Um, so yes, I'm Emily. I am a mom. I am a fitness professional. And I am also a widow as of March 2019, when my husband Ian passed away from uveal melanoma, very rare cancer when he was 32 years old. So it's been a lot of grief, on top of grief with COVID. But yeah, I think my grief journey really began not when he was first diagnosed. He was actually first diagnosed in 2011. We were both 24. At the time still dating, we had been college sweethearts. And it was just an eye tumor at the time. And I think both of us had this, you know, mindset that we were invincible. We were going to be the ones to beat this. It was just one small tumor, there's no way that it could get any worse. And we just kind of I mean, obviously we were worried but we just kept living life. We kind of said, All right, we're just going to push this aside. And we ended up getting married. We ended up starting a family. I mean, we did what we used to do with doctors and scans and treatments. But we just really did not let the fear of it get in the way of our lives, which was really awesome. Because I think that's hard to do for some people but then his cancer did metastasize and once this type of cancer metastasizes it's pretty much fatal. Most people live, like six to nine months after you find out that it's metastasized, and Ian luckily, lived 15 months past that time. But that was a period of anticipatory grief, that at the time, I didn't know what that term was, um, I was just trying to manage the feelings that kind of came up. And so what that kind of feels like, is really not being able to plan ahead, because everything is so uncertain. We would plan a doctor's visit, try a treatment, and then you do the treatment for like three months, and then you go and get the scan to see if it worked. And if it did, it's great. We bought some more time if it didn't, okay, well, what's our next plan? What's Plan B. And so it was never like, we were able to say, oh, next year, we want to go on a trip to Africa, because we didn't know if Ian would be around. And that was really hard. And I think it feels that anticipatory grief is a lot like what we're experiencing right now with COVID. Just feels like you're trying to make plans on like quicksand. Because you just don't know what each day will bring. And everything is just so incredibly uncertain. And you're literally anticipating the worst, like a lot of people right now don't know if their jobs are going to come back, or if the economy is going to come back. And it's the same thing for us. Like, we don't know if he is gonna be around for my son's first birthday, or various milestones. So that was a long period of anticipatory grief. And then I'm sorry, I'll backtrack a little bit, we found out that his cancer metastasized in August of 2017. So we had about like, six years there, where we felt like things were under control. And then 15 months after that, he ended up passing away in his hometown of Hawaii, on March 26th, 2019, it was an incredibly peaceful and beautiful passing for what it could have been, you know, like, we had 15 months, where we really just our mentality was, like, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And to us, that meant like making the most of the time that we had together. But after his passing, it's been almost two years, it'll be 21 months on the day after Christmas. Um, the grief has been primarily with just the loss of my husband and understanding and learning that it's not just losing a person, after someone dies, you lose so much more. Like, I lost the role of my husband, the father of my children, my best friend, just all of the different things that he did like around the house, and for us, as a family, I lost the sense of my family structure, I lost my identity, and a lot of like my purpose in life, like our shared goals, all of that was just like, gone. And these were things that I didn't really think about leading up to the loss. So navigating just all of those different losses on top of the logistics involved. And then the emotions of grief has been a journey in itself. And it's been really, really hard. You can't deny that. But it's also been incredibly profound. And I've grown like so much from the experience, not that I would ever trade it for Ian's life to happen back. But I think, you know, we all kind of find ourselves in situation, it's like, it is what it is, but it'll be what we make it and no one is really alone in this struggle, again, comparing it to like, COVID and the grief that we're experiencing there.
Mary : Yeah. You know, I'm so sorry for your loss and your children's loss and his family and community. I mean, I think that that needs to be said for one. And, you know, you brought up something that I actually don't even think I've heard of the phrase or if I have it hasn't sunk in of the anticipatory grief. And so COVID’s probably triggered your familiarity with anticipatory grief. I could see it as happening in two ways. One, you're familiar so like, there's a muscle memory that may come from it that maybe you operate out of that muscle memory, and then I'm wondering, or it could be the flip side, it causes a trauma response like has, does it go in waves, I'm sure for you and what's your experience with that?
Emily : Yeah, I had a really, really hard time. So like, I call it the world shutting down because that's what it felt like back in March 2020. And that was right around my husband's one year death anniversary. I actually had this like, awesome healing weekend planned to go to Sedona by myself, and just like, you know, lean into all my feelings, and then everything close down. And it was really incredibly triggering. There's two things going on. There's the grief of like the loss of normalcy that we've all felt. But then yeah, the anticipatory grief, that kind of weaves in and out, because our future is so unpredictable right now. But I sensed it literally right away. I was like, this feels exactly how it did when Ian and I were navigating his like cancer journey. And God, it's like, I hate to like qualify, I think we naturally do it. Like what was better or worse, because in some ways, just having that, like, the finiteness of death, it like almost forces you to accept a situation. Whereas with, or, I mean, it's still hard, you still don't want to deny it. But with COVID it's like the desire to fight the situation. And the reality is so much more there. Or at least it was for me, like, I was like, I don't want this. I just, you know, I just lost my husband. And now this and it really took me a while like, I had to go on a long hike. And I was like, alright, what would Ian tell me right now. And that was just to, you know, make the most of the moment, try to stay focused on one day at a time. And again, like, it is what it is, but it'll be what you make it like, what can you do? This is your situation, and you can either fight it, or I can surrender to it, and just kind of flow and figure out how I'm going to make this work.
Mary : Yeah, I think surrendering has like a bad connotation to it when what you just said right after that, though, is that surrendering is kind of an act of, of being in flow, rather than being out of flow. And you also mentioned that going on a hike like that it's productive for you to move. And that's what we're excited to hear from you too. Is that out of this, you found a company called moveTHRU? And can you tell us about moveTHRU?
Emily : Yeah, sure. I also just want to say on surrender, like, I feel like we have this thing about, like beating, like we have to be ones to beat but that’s the meaning that we're giving it too. Surrender like, to me is like grace and fluidity and, but that's a side note, because that's helped me get through the loss of my husband a lot. Um, but with moveTHRU, yeah, so moveTHRU. Basically, throughout my entire grief journey, whether it was anticipatory grief, or whether it was after the loss, the emotions and feelings involved can just be incredibly overwhelming. And for me, it's, it's very difficult to just like, sit still and be sad, or to sit, if I'm feeling anxious, I'm like, oh, I gotta do something. I can't just sit here and be like, this is harder anger, because emotion is energy and it needs a place to go. So I used to be a dancer, and I'm also a fitness instructor, I teach spin and I teach barre. So intuitively, I just said, Okay, I need to move my body. So if I was feeling anxious, I would jump on my spin bike and go ride ride through it. Or if I was feeling sad, just I had heaviness that I was carrying, I would go to yoga, and just kind of like, move through in that way, and I kind of just picked my workouts based off of the emotions that were coming up for me. And it's funny because I went to a workout where if I like picked wrong, like I noticed it, I'd be like, oh, yoga is like, way too chill. Like, I'm really angry right now. And I can't get my Zen on. Um, so that was kind of funny when that happened. But I think like, I hit a point six months after Ian had died. And I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. And like, I was like, just going back to my normal nine to five didn't feel right. Like I think the whole experience I just was really like jaded, and I wanted to do something really meaningful. And I had found that through sharing my story on social media and through the GoFundMe that we had started, people would just reach out and say, like, wow, your words have really impacted me. They made me see the world differently. Are they really helping me because I just lost my mom or my husband or someone and, and to hear that, like my experience was helping someone else's. It was incredibly healing for me. So I kind of worked with a coach and I married these two ideas like how can I use my story to help others in a way that's true and authentic to me, which was through movement. So I started moved through which is a community where we bring people together and we help people cope with grief through exercise, and we're doing that in a lot of different ways we have in person workouts here in Denver, I have virtual workouts now with COVID. And then I also just launched my online course, which basically talks about eight common emotions experienced in the grieving process. And I've created a model on how it just teaches you how to own your feelings. As a society, we tend to suppress harder emotions, like anger, like sadness, we’re kind of taught, like, we need to keep it together, or we should just like move on. You know, you don't want to feel sad, because we shouldn't just be happy all the time. And it's for someone who has just gone through such a monumental loss. I mean, our body is like physiologically responding to this, it's not like we even have conscious control over some of these emotional responses. So it just does a huge disservice when we're not allowed to feel what we need to feel. And I think that's what really gets people stuck in their grief. Because we get caught in this cycle of negative thoughts saying, I should feel happy, I shouldn't be feeling this way. I'm not allowed to be angry when all of this is a natural response to a loss. So it just teaches people how to own and embrace their feelings, how to feel them through a workout, and then how to kind of go on and reframe the hardship that you've been through how to look at it and say, Okay, well, this horrible thing happened to me. And we're not going to minimize that experience, because it was awful. But at the same time, how can I reframe this as a learning opportunity? What can I learn from my feelings? And how can I see the world in a new way, based off of what this experience has brought me?
David : I love how the communal aspect was so important. So you had all this feedback where you were really, you felt like it was helping other people, and they were saying it was helping them. But then it did also help you too, like it was this two way street where and and even with building this community for physical movement, and recognizing that these emotions are in our body, there's still so much of that community aspect that you're kind of bringing to the table. And you're right, like, we don't know how to talk about these hard topics, like, you know, even in our American greeting, Hey, how are you? And the correct answer is good. If you want the real answer, you have to ask the question again, and say no, I mean, it like, really, how are you doing? So I just, yeah, I love how you recognize that we've got to figure out a better way to talk through these harder conversations as well. And grief being obviously one of them.
Emily : Yeah. And what's been really powerful is that people who come to my workouts, at least in the in person ones, just being in the same room as a bunch of other people who've experienced something similar. I mean, maybe it's not the exact same loss, but it's a loss, and not having to actually put words to that. And to just feel that energy. It has been really, really supportive and empowering for everyone. Because another thing that I struggled with, and that I've talked to peers about is it's hard, it's hard to name our emotions. Because we're not really taught how. There are times where I go to therapy. And I would talk about what's coming up, but I still I just, I don't know, I'm just like, off, like, I don't, I don't, I couldn't put my emotions into words, but then I would go to a yoga class or something. And I would just cry in Shavasana. And I would release it and I just felt better. And I think that sometimes when you are deep in grief, you don't necessarily know what you need. You just want that glimmer of hope or relief from that like darkness that can really feel like it swallows you at times. So
David : yeah, and sometimes there just aren't any words. But so there are no words to say for sure. So what are these like eight steps?
Emily : So do you want the steps or the emotions? There's eight and eight.
David : Yes and yes
Emily : It kind of happened organically. Okay, so I got together a focus group of early people that had been following me at my spin studio, who, you know, I told them, I was going through this rough patch. And then they were like, I've been there too. And it's just like this really cool, organic connection that you have by just being vulnerable. Right? And so I created a couple different focus groups and they helped me. I said these are the emotions that came up for me like what came up for you on your journey? And we honed in on eight that seemed to be like, pretty common across the board. And then also, you know, I've done a ton of research. Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler is on grief and grieving the five stages. And so that's how I kind of came up with the emotions. And then I also worked with a social worker who kind of clued me into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is basically about just owning our emotions. And then like feeling them learning how to feel our feelings, and then finding a way to kind of reframe the situation. So the moveTHRU method follows kind of that philosophy, but I added my own little twist to it, and it follows the acronym moveTHRU. So M is motivation. So that's the reason behind our behavior and why we're feeling that way. So I'll say, Alright, guys, come in, let's get into our bodies. Let's see what's coming up. If you notice anger or something, can you explore why you might be feeling this way? And then I actually asked them to write it out, like, I have it on the mirror. So anger, I'll be doing Thanksgiving with my parents and not my husband. And so everyone just writes it out. And it's really cool to see everyone's different things. Because, again, you don't have to say it, but you're like, wow, like, yeah, I feel that too. Like, I hate seeing. I hate going to baby showers. Because when I lost my baby, like, that is a trigger for me, you know. So then self motivation, I asked them to keep that with them. The entire class, O is ownership, we own our feelings. I say, All right, let's be angry together, let's be lonely together. All of these feelings are here for a reason. It's okay to feel this way. V is validation. Again, giving them that validation, it's okay to feel that way. And in the course, I actually go deep dive like, this is why your body is literally responding in this way. And then E is experiencing your emotions. And that's like a big chunk of the workout or the experiences, feeling them. So this isn't an opportunity to necessarily escape your emotions, it's an opportunity to confront them and explore them and feel them because a lot of times people work out and say, I'm just gonna work out to like, distract from the pain into like, numb it out. This is like, no, like, you're gonna face this head on. And then T is together, highlighting that you're not in this alone. This is a community, H is honor, honoring your pain, honoring your loss honoring your person. Because I think in order to start seeking the light, you have to honor that darkness. Before otherwise, you're just like bypassing, right? Like, it's there. It's real. And I'm not trying to take that away from anyone. And then you go to R which is reframe. And then U is understanding. So what are my feelings teaching me? What is this anger telling me? And even on a broader scale? What am I learning from just this entire experience of loss?
Mary : So do you offer a spectrum of exercises or energies or approaches to mirror the emotions you're advocating for?
Emily : 100% yeah, so your anger workouts are gonna feel completely different than sadness. Actually, for sadness, like I tell people go for like a walk, or just be completely still by like, a much more restorative yoga flow, where anger is gonna be, like slamming stuff into the ground and like punching things. And they all kind of follow a similar format, just because I have a lot of like, moments of intention where you're really focused on what you're feeling. And then there's a period where we release that energy through some sort of cardio burst, or yeah, just kind of get it out.
Mary : Well, that, to me, sounds like the difference between just going to exercise to bypass compared to having a productive experience. And it's not that like that through that then suddenly grief goes away. Right? That it's just working with it, because it doesn't go away. And I guess a question that comes up for me though, too, is, you know, if we're so not in tune with what emotions or naming emotions, how do you guide someone to identifying the right output of energy, if they're unable to recognize what energy they're needing?
Emily : Right. So I mean, that's honestly what the course dives into, like, I literally am like, Alright, this is anxiety. This is how it might feel in your body. And so that just like teaching people that a lot of times there is kind of this like brain body disconnect, and how can we kind of turn off our brain and tune into what's coming up for us in our bodies to notice it? Because really, like, it's giving ourselves permission to feel these things, right. Like you said it at the beginning of this podcast about, I can't remember how you phrased it but like, you can experience so much joy. But it's almost even more amplified in the presence of such sadness and being able to say okay, right now in this moment, I am feeling sad. and allowing myself to just like feel that fully and cry has brought me more joy overall, in the spectrum, like, I think you need both extremes. And that's what we're missing, right is like we just want to solve and be better and feel constant happiness, but that actually takes away from the whole human experience and acknowledging that our feelings are just feelings. Just because I feel anger does not mean I'm an angry person, it means that I'm having an emotion that I need to work through. And a lot of times, beneath all the anger is another wound that needs to be healed. And like, there's just so much self growth that can happen when we just allow ourselves to feel what's coming up.
Mary : So how does this work influence your children's grief journey?
Emily : I love that. We're learning from each other. Um, but yeah, like, if I see my son, my son is two, he knows the narrative about his daddy dying. But he doesn't know what that means. Like, he doesn't get the context of it. My daughter Isabel is five is now getting like the permanence of it. And it's like, sometimes just like his daddy coming back. She, I have to tell her, you know, no. And that's hard. So sometimes, like when she's crying, whether it be related to grief, or whether it be related to not getting a cookie or something, I'm like, all right, Izzy, are you ready for a solution? That actually came from Glennon Doyle's “Untamed” and I loved it because it's so true. It's like, sometimes we just need to be pissed off or we just need to have a little tantrum before we're able to have that clarity, where we're ready for a solution. And I think that's another missing component with grief. Like sometimes we just need to be sad, and we don't want to read a freakin self help book or we don't want to get better. We just want to freakin feel it. And that's what I kinda do with Izzy, I’m like well, do you want to feel better? And sometimes she'll sniffle and she'll think of that. And she's like, Yeah, I do. And I'm like, Okay, well, then let's do a breathing exercise. Let's breathe together, smell the flowers, blow out the candles, or she's really having a hard time. We'll say, All right. Are you angry? Do you want to go hit a pillow? Do you want to go scream with me outside? So I just kind of ask her, like, how she wants to release whatever she's feeling. And then, you know, there's times where I have definitely not modeled the best behavior like I've, it's a lot like single parenting during COVID. Online Learning on top of grief. Like, I've definitely lost it in front of my kids. And I'm human too so I just say, Izzy, that was not the best way for Mommy, I was angry. And here's why I was angry. And I probably like next time, will you come scream outside with me or scream into a pillow? Because I didn't mean to direct that at you or so just trying to be really open and honest about our feelings with one another.
Mary : Yeah. And that her witnessing the extremes of emotions, I feel like are just as valuable to your messaging, right? And that the coming around of witnessing that you are human and not perfect is also a value. I don't know if I told you this. I lost my father in March this year unexpected.
Emily : Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Mary : No, but the reason why I bring that up is that I remember it's still on Thanksgiving, right? I heard a song, had never heard the song before said I liked it, then recognize that it was one of my dad's favorite artists and then boom, you're like, Well, shit. I didn't know that was gonna happen. And we were playing a game as a family and I just lost it. I had to leave the room. And then and you know, my, my little three year old boy, just like all little boys nowadays are so intuitive and empathic and sensitive. And so then he comes up and he's so concerned. And I can see the energy transfer to that suddenly he feels like, he wants to cry. He's confused. He's not sure and it feels out of control. And so it is hard to balance the inconsistency of grief and the ugliness that it can expose with the composure consistency you're trying to. I don't know. embody around children especially so yeah, I don't know. It just reminded me that it just is like it's really ugly on many occasions, and maybe the ugly is is good too, because that's a permission giving act.
David : It seems like being open and being honest is one of the constants that's required. With yourself, with other people, with your kids, owning that you're like, that wasn't me yelling at you that was, you know, just owning it. And it's like embracing it.
Emily : Yeah, embracing it. I think we do qualify these emotions, like, joy, happiness, love content, are good, sadness, guilt, anger, are bad. And someone sent me a quote, early on, it was like feelings or feelings, they all deserve reverence. And we just do this with anything. And it's just natural. But I've been really trying to like, if I catch myself doing I'm like, Well, why what makes this bad, like, this is just as much of an important emotion, or a natural emotion as these other ones on the opposite end of the spectrum.
David : One of our first episodes was an episode called beautifully angry, and through that dialogue, like just even talking together online we’re like, anger can be this good thing. And it is just this emotion. So why are we feeling that? And then what is it telling us? You know, how do we embrace it?
Emily : Yeah, a piece to me that makes moveTHRU so beneficial to people is just giving that permission because we beat ourselves up. And that's literally where we get stuck in grief. Because it's like, I shouldn't be feeling this way. Why am I feeling this way, I'm such a bad person. I'm now screwing up my kids because I can't get out of grief. And we just go around and round and round and round. And the only way to like break, that negative thought cycle is through moving our bodies. Animals do this, naturally, they win their fight or flight response gets caught in a loop, they have a natural instinct to go and shake. We don't have that. And our minds are really, really powerful. Yeah, so we just get trapped.
Mary : It reminds me of this, I was trained in authentic leadership at a Buddhist school in Boulder, maybe you know, since you’re in Colorado at Naropa. And a ton of leaders from the industry I was in at the time came together to get trained in this. And to frame for the whole training, how can we make sure that we're all able to bring our fullest, most authentic self to the table. And it was the statement that you are not what you say. So by remembering that what you say or what you feel is not who you are, that then allows you to not get stuck in this cyclical thought pattern of the concern or the overthinking, or the trying to make sense of things or trying to understand where it comes from. And instead, it can be this like, free flow of thought and feeling and it just makes it so that it's less inhibited. And that still sticks with me today is like, okay, like, I love how you said like, if you experience anger, you are not an angry person. But so often, I think we even put that on other people. When I experience anger from other people, I get such a visceral reaction, that I label them as an angry person
Emily : like they need to go control themselves.
Mary : yeah and so like, I think that the practices, not even just that we can probably by giving permission to ourselves, do a better job at putting that out to the world as well.
Emily : Yeah, totally. I also love how we can, like there's feelings are conscious, right? Whereas emotions can also be experienced, subconsciously. So if you think about like, anger is an emotion like it again, it's a response. And there's a certain degree of control. Um, but then also for these more, these feelings, where we do have conscious thought involved, like, how can we change that narrative? Yeah, like with loneliness, like, what am I making up my loneliness? with guilt? Like, well, am, I really, like guilt when you've done something wrong is founded, but when you haven't done anything wrong, you're just having regrets over like, something that you had no control over. Being able to challenge that, but having the knowledge to know like, what we can actually control versus like, what is more of an automatic response, I think, at least for me, it's been really helpful cuz it's just like, all right, like, I'm not doing anything wrong. Like, this is just, like, I just lost someone who I loved and I spent like, 18 years of my life with and my body is just responding to that, you know? So normalizing all of it
Mary : normalizing something that I think like, feels foreign, but is one of the most universal. Yeah. Right is the universally binding thing. It's like, what's guaranteed is that we will all die. Yeah. So, you know, and it's always intense to even say that, I think that that's why the conversation of grief is so heavy because it's, it's one of the staple things that we all know to be true. But the resistance, like you sort of started with was as COVID hit, like, I've recognized so much resistance in this time too like, No, it's just going to get better this, like, I'm such an idealist, which can sometimes mean that I'm like, avoiding things too, just because it's a survival tool. But it's just an intense thing to sit with.
Emily : It is, but you're right. And I mean, one of my big goals with moveTHRU and just sharing my grief journey is to normalize death. And that experience be and like I have, I've struggled with COVID, because the way I see it is just another way to die. It's another risk factor among many. And I just feel like if we were able to recognize that we aren't mortal, and that literally every day you leave your house and you jump in your car, there's no guarantee that you're going to make it back. Like how does that just shift our perspective on just how to live like, fully and more gratefully and more in the now
Mary : Has that manifested for you. I mean, I'm sure that it comes and goes
Emily : it's like, it goes in waves. There's some days where I have these moments where, like, I really reflect and like, I look at the world, and it's like, god, like, everything is so freaking beautiful. And you just want to like, soak it all in, and then you kind of get back into like, the grind and it's just human nature. We can't all just be like, outside journaling. And you know, just like, oh my god, like this flower. It's amazing. But just taking that time to actually like, stop and just reflect and really realize, yeah, like, it's just nothing is guaranteed. And I think it's hard to pass that message on until you've been through something because you really like I thought I was freaking I mean, Ian got diagnosed with cancer. We're like, We're fine. You're gonna make it like, even then we were like, No, we got this. But yeah, and then it's just your worst nightmare comes through and you're like, oh, okay, like, shit can happen. And yeah.
David : What advice do you give to people that like, I think one of the hard things with COVID is it's like this prolonged grief. So we don't know when it's ending. Thankfully, it looks like there's some end maybe insight in the next, I don't know, six months. And then for people that have lost loved ones, they'll probably be, you know, there's the grief of the moment, there's the grief of not being able to celebrate that person's life, because we can't really gather right now. So there's gonna be these extra waves of grief. And then we're all just trying to hold it together, kind of, like we've mentioned several times, like, so what is that sitting in it? Look and feel like any kind of tricks?
Emily : Yeah, that's hard. Um, I always start with, just give yourself permission to feel whatever you need to feel, to do, whatever you need to do, because there is no right or wrong way to do grief. And it's just so unique to everyone's journey. So I would say, one is give yourself permission. Two is trust, trust in your own process, we tend to or at least I did, we tend to second guess our own grief. And say, like, we're doing this wrong. So just again, going back, there's no right or wrong. And then support. Support so that you can make space for your grief. And that's hard right now, because support looks different than it did you know, back in February of this year, we don't have friends to like hug and touch us and to hold but or to just even distract us sometimes like support can go it can be logistical people, buying new groceries, it can be emotional talking to someone and crying with it can be a distraction. So acknowledging that there's a lot of different ways to get support. And if you're not comfortable asking, find someone who will. And if you don't have that network within your family, look online, search the hashtag grief, like the most powerful tool for me was connecting with other widows and hearing their story, and then don't compare, but like, look at them for just hope and inspiration. Like if they can do this then I can too. I also would highly recommend this podcast called “terrible thanks for asking” it started by a widow. And it just highlights these people's stories of struggle were like horrific stories of struggle. And I know it sounds bad to like, go there. But you're like, wow, if they can do that, you know, just like that same support. So yeah, what did I say it was like permission, trust, support, move your body in some way, do an online workout at home, go for a walk, just get out there and move because even though you might feel like you're like, okay, in your mind, something might be manifesting in your body that is nice to just release. Or if you are in that kind of like, negative spiral, just moving that through, those would be my biggest tips.
Mary : Yeah, still to this day, every time I ride my bike by myself, I cry. I don't just, you know, I was a cry-er to begin with. So it's like, Yay, like my poor household. There's so much so much crying happening. But it does, like you didn't even know that you needed it. Right. And then it comes through. And I have a couple questions. But one very specific question I have was inspired by, someone asked me last night, my friend texted me and said, my best friend just lost her mother. And she was one of the only people at the time that brought me like a bounty of food afterwards, which ended up being so huge. I didn't realize what it was like, it's kind of like when you like, have a child, right? There's a lot of the same things that I think with birth and death and like the same gestures. But she asked me like, what can I do besides bring food and the one thing that I shared as advice, in this time, and I'd love to hear if you have anything to add to that was not only in the immediate future, provide support, but in three weeks, in two months, like one to two years. Yeah, you know, when it's not gone away, for the person that's grieving, when, you know, I compare it to, like, tragedies happen on the news. And then a week later, it's no longer on the news, but it's still with those that are grieving. Right. So that was what I suggested was like, you know, set a calendar reminder for yourself to reach back out or to give another meal or, or to provide some support. Is there anything you would add to that because I think that it's hard to know what to do for people when they're grieving.
Emily : Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think that can be like one of the most isolating and depressing moments for someone in grief is when you're just like everyone is moving on, except for me. And I like to say moving forward instead of moving on, because moving on implies that you just kind of like “we’re done”. And it's not it's you're always it's always there. But yeah, and I also think like a lot of people now that I'm in my second year agreements, like people have said, it's a lot harder because people expect you to be over it. And that can be really hard, because when you start second guessing your grief again, and saying that I shouldn't be really sad, but the reality is that it's with you for life. And it doesn't have to be a bad thing. Like, my sadness that I feel for my husband is like, literally all of the love that I have for him. And it's like, how I connect with him now. And I'm like, totally okay with crying, especially during the holidays. It doesn't have to be, you know, this sad, depressing thing. It is. But yeah, I love the idea of checking in, and just showing up, right? Like, instead of asking what you need, like, just go pick up some Thai food and drop it by the house. Because a lot of times you just don't even know you need, right? So, yeah
Mary : And not even asking them what they need, but maybe providing options. Like I also equate it to like when you have a toddler and you're like here, like you can have this or this, like it makes it easier for them to, to then make a decision. And maybe that's another solution to say like, I'd love to bring you send you flowers or buy you a meal like yeah, then they feel like oh, like what was that in this vast array of like, when I'm like that, you know, they're like, I'm overwhelmed as is, I have no idea what I had.
Emily : It was so awesome, when my husband passed, we were in Hawaii at the time and his friends would literally just like pop by and be like “all right, give me a job.” They'd be like, you know, you want me to cook, you want me to take the kids?” They just were there. Um, because you know, some people will say like, what can I do? And you're like, Well, do you really mean it? Yeah, it's really nice to just
Mary : So the other question I have, you know, you talked a lot about mind body connection, and that's something that we really are into, we have music playlist that we accompany with every podcast and, and David's a musician. We just think that so much of music can play a role in productively, you know, connecting the mind and the body and bringing the logical with the feeling and do you have any songs that have meaning to you that you would suggest that people could add to their playlists and that will add to this playlist?
Emily : Oh my god, I can send you guys like so many playlists. If you want. I have like a playlist for breath work, I have a playlist of songs that remind me of Ian where like, I literally feel like he's like speaking to me through the lyrics. I have playlists for like Angry songs. I have playlists for just like literally everything. Um, I have this playlist, but I always reference it's called chill vibes. Yeah, these are more songs that are just a little more just like peaceful. And they kind of just allow me to just be but they always typically like elicit some, some sort of emotion. And I always end up in tears. But like I said, but I like to cry.
David : Well, and earlier, we were talking about how sometimes there are no words. That's what I think the beauty of music, both the positive and the negative emotion. The beauty of music is it just connects the body, connects the emotion part of our brain and connects the logic part of the brain. And sometimes it gives us words then when there are no words to say.
Emily : Yes, absolutely. So you guys, the song I like is obrecht, it's obrecht. And the artist is analog dear.
Mary : Yeah, so you guys heard it here. Emily said the one that you have to turn on after listening to this is “obrecht” from analog dear
Emily : Yeah. Just go like, turn it on, light a candle go look at the stars and just like, or the sunshine, whatever. Like see what comes up.
Mary : Thank you so much for coming on. Can you share where everyone can find more of your work? Sure. So um, I'm on Instagram, @Emilypbingham. And then that's where i write about my grief journey a lot. And then for move through it's the website is movethrugrief.com. And then I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. I actually just started TikTok account too. But the handle is @movethrugrief. Same spelling as the website.
Mary : Beautiful. Thanks so much for coming on the third place, it means alot to us.
David : And sharing your story.
Emily : Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. This has been really awesome. I'm glad we got to connect
Mary : Us too, the work that you do and your story needs to be shared and you happen to be in Colorado, so now you know, we can see each other and go meet outside or something
Emily : Yeah, come to a workout once it’s safe! Thank you guys.
Mary : Thanks Emily. Be well
