Healing Grief with Science, Mindfulness, and Self-Compassion | Sylvia Wolfer

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0:44 Denzel Washington, Welcome to inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Sylvia welcome. Thank you for having me. Hey, I'm grateful. I I'm kind of smiling. This is a rare time that I get to actually do an interview in the afternoon because I'm here in Thailand, but you're into Cambodia exactly. Yeah, what took you to Cambodia. Well, I'm kind of a digital nomad, you know, I'm French, but I've lived in many We lived and worked in many different countries. And I spent eight years in England, and I left England a couple of years ago, and then I spent two years in Sri Lanka and now I'm just in Cambodia to explore in other countries. I'm just really lucky to be able to work online and to travel as I work and live my life.

1:30 Well, how long are you going to stay in Cambodia do you think? Well? For now, I'll spend six weeks and then go back to Sri Lanka. But if I do like it, I might come back for longer. Okay, good, Well, we're not that far away with me, so that's great. Hey, what I'd love for you to do is kind of share with the audience your story. Go back as far as you need to go. But I find it always fascinating to hear about the journey of what brought you to this point of doing what you're doing. Yes, thank you Doug for asking. I find that in general, whenever you ask someone I'd like to say, anyone about their story, it's always mind blowing. Everyone has a story, and no one is boring really, so taking time to listen to people's stories is always very nourishing, I find, so thank you for asking. So my life was shaped by grief. I lost my dad when I was seven.

2:20 Ten years later, my younger brother died in a terrible road accident, and only recently before Lockdown, my older brother died same suddenly in an accident, and two years ago my mom passed as well. So basically, from a family of six, there's only my brother and myself left. And it's like grief has been a thread throughout my life. But most of the time, up until a few years ago, I was hiding it because I didn't want people to feel uncomfortable. But it also felt like I wasn't revealing my full identity because it's such a big part of me that I always felt like introducing myself saying, hey, I'm Sillyah, the girl who lost her family, because this is just to who I am. And so I did different types of work, and over the past ten years I did a lot of coaching, already life coaching, personal training, pil artists, meditations as well, and a few years ago I started therapy to work on my grief, and my therapist said to me one day. Listen, it's good that you work on your trauma, and it's good that you were here to process these things. But you're really a beautiful example of resilience because you're genuinely happy. You love life, you love people, and even though it's not my place to say this, I think you're not allowed to keep that to yourself. So at first I was a bit shocked, and I said, what do you mean. I said, well, I think you have a clear mission here. You need to share your experience, you need to help people go through their grief. And I was very reluctant. I was like, no, no, no, I don't think I want to do that. I tried

3:50 to shy a way to run away from grief because it's so painful, so hard. I don't want to have any more grief in my life than what I already have to carry. I walked home that day, and by the time I got home, it was evident. I thought, she's right, she's right. I'm not allowed to keep that to myself. And that's how I started sharing my grief experience, my journey, the things that helped me. And you know, even though grief is very universal, everyone is going to go through grief at some point, no one will be spared. It's also very personal. We all live it on a very individual level. But somehow I found that quite a few people did resonate with my story and it gave a lot of meaning and to my grief and to my work, and it ended up being very therapeutic as well to dive into the literature to share stories with other people. So that's where I am today, helping people through grief. That's my story and Electuly Wow.

4:46 So you have a website and what people reach out to you and then you work with them via zoomia zoomer, yes exactly. So what I'm trying to do in my work is really to offer something for everyone no my it doesn't matter whether they have financial means or not. So I have a platform also on Spotify, Apple Podcasts where I do guided free guided meditations. I write a lot of articles, I have my own blog, and then I offer online courses digital courses self pace that are really fairly priced and then for those who are ready to investigate more in themselves, I also offer one to ones exactly yes on our website wonderful Well.

5:27 And you know everybody experiences grief in different ways. And it isn't always that we've lost a loved one, but many times that's probably some of the deepest grief. But are there other examples besides losing loved ones that you have found people are experiencing quote grief that has nothing to do with that. Yes, yes, yes, Sometimes a divorce, you know, brings up the same type of feelings losing a job being made redundant and bring up the same type of feelings moving, moving country, moving homes. So yes, grief is a very universal experience, and I think it's something that is unfortunately still taboo and we don't talk about it enough on how to actually manage things because there are ways to handle it, not to get over it, because it will always be there, but there are skills we can learn and we can develop to handle grief better. And if we can handle grief, grief with a big j which is you know, losing a loved one, then we are more able to handle the smaller griefs that life brings along as well.

6:32 Well. And you know, it's interesting you said that you went and obviously saw therapy and did some courses and so forth. Meditation. We'll talk more about that. But and then she's telling you that you're resilient even though you experienced all of this. Did you find that in the course of Obviously, I'm sure that therapy helped, but did you find that you were approaching it in a way that was allowing you to experience life happiness still or were you hiding it? Yeah, thank you for asking. That's a really good question. So the first time I was faced with the loss was when I was a child. I was seven and my dad died suddenly of a heart attack. We woke up one morning he was gone, and my mom decided to move countries, so we were also separate from our family.

7:16 It was quite a traumatic experience and so from that age very quickly And that sounds a bit morbid, but it actually really taught me to enjoy life and to love people. Whenever I would come across someone, I would always have that thought in the back of my head, thinking what if they died tomorrow, you know, what would I think about them? How would I feel about them, How would I see them, how would I look at them? And so it really taught me to look at people from a very different angle, seeing them as something very precious. And seeing the good in people right away. And it also remember thinking to myself, now I have my mother and my three brothers and then my everything, and so I just really had that immense love for them, which now in hinds I'm really grateful for because it's my biggest consolation. I've lost two of my brothers and my mum, but the relationship we had was so deep, so genuine, and so full of love that this brings me comfort on the hardest days.

8:13 Well, and as you work with people, I'm sure a lot of people didn't have that experience and yet they still lose someone. Do you find that your approach is similar to what you were being helped with by the therapist or who you found a unique approach based on your own personal experiences that you find actually helps maybe even more at least a very special group of people. Yes, I think it's trying to pinpoint that you know there is something that will be helpful for anyone out there, and it won't be the same thing for everyone. So my therapist had a way of doing which is different from what I do. But like I started therapy well into my forties, I wish I had started earlier, but the things that have helped me personally were really to understand the data, to dive into the science, the neuroscience the physiology of grief, and to really like data numbers, figures give me a sense of agency and control when everything seems to crumble. And understanding that there's so much shared experience in grief when it comes to the science of it. You know, when people grieve, the brain is damaged like it would be by a real accident, you know, like a concussion. So there are changes in our physiology that come with grief. And understanding that just gave me a lot of validation. I felt less alone, you know, and it also helped me understand that there was nothing wrong with me. Because we don't talk so much about grief.

9:42 People who grieve often think they're crazy, they're going mad. You know, you still feel like calling your loved one months even years after they've passed, and you think, what's wrong with me? Why do I not take it in that they're not here anymore? So this is what has helped me. A lot slow movement, meditation, and a lot of data in science, and that's what I try to offer to the people that I help. So what if you found are some of the physiological situations that occur because of grief. Well, for example, you know, when a loved one dies, the next of kin, the closest people are twice more likely to have a heart attack within the next few days of the loved one passing. The immune system is affected, so we have like we're much more prone to illnesses, to flu like symptoms, and with that comes what is called the sickness behavior, which is a kind of depression linked to feeling ill. You know, when we have the flu, we kind of tend to not be as joyful and a beat as we would normally be, and this passes as soon as the flu passes as well. It's called sickness behavior, and this is very present in grief, and this kind of creates that loop where you're already feeling low and then on top of that, you have these symptoms that you would have if you had the flu.

10:57 So the body really, it really takes a toll on the ordy. The nervous system is on high alert, sleep is disrupted, digestion is disrupted, the circadian rhythm is disrupted, brain fog as well, the ability to focus. So these are all physiological impacts of grief that have nothing to do with willpower or you know, when people go back to work, they usually have to go back to work within weeks after a loss, and they just can't bring up the productivity they used to. And this is not because they don't want to, it's really because their bodies can't. They can't give the same energy and output as they did before. Well, and you mentioned meditation, I know, we'll talk about that, mindfulness and so forth. We also mentioned neuroscience, and I think that for people, you know, sometimes when we talk about meditation and some of those things, it's like a little out there for some people, they just don't understand it because they've never experienced it. But when we get into neuroscience and start to see how that takes place in a very effective scientific way, helps people understand some of the approaches that they can take. So what has been your understanding of the neuroscience aspect of this and how it can actually help us to overcome a great that we are of an experience.

12:14 Yes, So what I found really almost life changing, I would say, is to understand that we have a map in our brain, a three dimensional map. We all have it. That is linked to our loved ones or to the people that we know in general. So if I ask you, for example, where your spouse is right now, or where your children are, you will be able to locate them geographically. And if I ask you when you will be in touch with them again, you will also be able to tell me timely, roughly when you will see them again. And then there is the connection, the link. You obviously will will be more connected to your spouse than to the barista down the road, even if you see the barista every day. So if you didn't hear from the barista in two weeks, you wouldn't be worried, but if you don't hear from your spouse in a week, you will be worried. So we have that three dimensional map, which is time, space and connection, and the brain changes, but it changes slowly, and when it integrates information, it's like tattooed in our brain, so it stays for a long time, and that three dimensional map is completely confused.

13:19 When someone dies, and this is why we feel like someone's going to walk through the door at six pm, like this was the case for the past twenty years, or you feel like calling someone quickly and then you remember, they're not here anymore. And it's this mismatch between what your brain remembers and the reality that creates these huge waves of grief when it's suddenly overcomes you and you realize that, wow, now this is my new reality. So what is helpful to understand is that these two parts, the time and the location, these need to be readjusted. The brain needs to be recalibrated to understand that these are gone, but the connection on the other side is still here. And this is what we can work on to move forward with grief. If that makes.

14:05 Sense, Well it does. And how do you change that time and expectation and so forth. Well, you have to give yourself time, you know, and be very be very gentle, and just be mindful, just communicate with yourself and remind yourself, you know, like this is a normal reaction. I'm expecting this because my brain takes time to recalibrate. Just to be aware of it is already a first big step towards recalibrating because most of the time people don't know that and they just think they're going mad. They just think they're bunkers, that something is wrong with them. So just the awareness is already very helpful, and then it's about, you know, just repeating it to ourselves. This is normal, it's painful, my brain is trying to adapt. There's nothing wrong with me.

14:50 Well, and you know what I find interesting. I remember a number of talks from people talking about, you know, prayer and how prayer we can prayer right to eliminate some of that grief. But I remember a talk where the gentleman said, you know, so often we pray, but we've forgotten to meditate. And I find that I think growing up we learn how to pray in a certain way, but meditation is something that's in some respects a part of it. But even at a higher level, would you share what your experience was and is with meditation and how you went through that process. Yes, So before talking about my own experience, I'd like to stress that meditation is not for everyone. It is amazing, it is incredible, but meditation can be very triggering the people with past traumas, with anxiety. So sitting in silence is not helpful for everyone. But mindfulness is, and meditation is a type of mindfulness. And mindfulness is simply bringing your awareness to something in particular in a given moment without judgment. So this can be done walking outdoors. This can be done painting, dancing, listening to music. It doesn't have to be sitting in silence. For my part, I started meditation years ago because well, everyone was saying it's good for you, so I thought, well, I'm going to do it. If it's good, I'm going to do it.

16:15 But for years, really I didn't struggle, but I would fall asleep, I would get a bit restless. It took time and practice, but I just kept pushing through because I had the feeling that it would get me somewhere. And then after my brother died, before Lockdown, before COVID, I was really it really hit me very very badly, and I did start to meditate much more, and suddenly there was a shift. And now meditation for me is like a treat It's where I come back to myself. When I meditate, I come home. All the noise stops, and if I need to make big decisions or if I need an answer, if I need to to just find that inner piece, I know I can get back to that place. And because of the years of practice, now it goes it's easier for me to reach that place.

17:05 And it's extremely comforting and reassuring because I feel like this is a place I can go to whenever I need it. You know, I can do that from anywhere. I can do it at the airport, I can do it in my bed, I can do it in a waiting room. This is my safe space. And it gives a lot of agency as well, because then your inner piece does not depend on external factors anymore. You can access it by yourself. And this is really powerful, and it is possible. It's not something out there that is just for the illuminated or you know, it is accessible. Yeah. Well, and you said something that I want to clarify a little bit because as you commented about meditation being somewhat of a danger for those that have been suffering from experiences in childhood abuse and so forth, and yet of the hundreds of people that I've interviewed who talk about meditation as it can in fact be so helpful in overcoming those situations. So I'd love for you to clarify why is it that you think that meditation in a certain way is not helpful and how do people and I think it does combined with mindfulness, but how do people use meditation in your experience to overcome some of those early traumises, so that rather than meditation being damaging, it's helpful, like I personally believe it is, and it is.

18:28 You're absolutely right. The reason why I always like to pinpoint that is that I've come across people who thought there was something wrong with them because it would make them feel very anxious and very stressed to try to meditate. It would feel very uncomfortable sitting in silence, and this is the reason why. So for most people it will be beneficial, but there is a handful of people for whom it will be triggering and challenging. And it's just for these people to know that there is nothing wrong with them. Like meditation is not that thing that will just be one hundred percent of the population. There's a percentage that will not benefit from it right away. But a good way to overcome this is to start with mindfulness, which is just awareness. So you can just sit somewhere for a minute. You could look at a candle. That's a Buddhist practice, you know, just look at the flame of a candle and breathe slowly. That's a way of doing it. I find guided meditations are also very helpful because you're not alone with yourself, you listen to someone guiding you to something that can be very soothing. And then using the five senses, if you go for a walk, for example, try to be mindful or aware of what's happening, the sounds on your left, the sounds on your right, What can you see in front of you, how do your feed feel in your shoes, things like that, you know, using the five senses to create that mindfulness. That doesn't have to be meditation, but obviously meditation can be absolutely extraordinary for most people.

19:55 I agree, well it can, and I think you bring up the point that if someone is meditated and those things come up and it's affecting them in a negative way, it really has to do with not understanding how to approach meditation in a way and mindfulness wise and awareness as you bring up, so that you know, if I'm meditating, recognizing that some of that early trauma is going to come up when it comes up, if I'm mindful, if I'm aware and understanding that that's going to happen, but also understanding that by being able to recognize that and put it to the side or just accept it and understand that, hey, that's something that happened, maybe even developed some understanding of was there any value that came out of that? What's happening now in my life? I mean, as I interview so many people who were abused in their early childhood and having gone through that and overcoming it, and now here they are out there helping people such as you know what you're doing, but with the grief, but helping people to really overcome that because they experienced it.

21:04 So it's a difference of being the victim of some of that versus ultimately becoming mindful enough and arewarre enough to recognize that, you know what, I can take these experiences and if I turn them around a little bit, I can actually be of value to other people. Yes, absolutely, you're absolutely right, and I think sometimes it is needed help from someone else, you know, to overcome that and to learn the ability to sit with trauma, to sit with discomfort. Yes, you're right well, and you. Know so often and you bring this up in one of your talking points that so often we have people say to us, you know what, just get over it.

21:45 You know, I've heard enough of this, and probably many times people have gotten into that victim mode, and so that starts to irritate your family and everybody else, and then you'll get this comment get over it, which I think is so sad to even hear that. But how do you help people and how do you explain the difference between quote getting over it and working through it? Yeah, that's such an important point, and that part of my work, an important part of my work is what I call emotional investigation. So it's about it's a skill that really I think anyone could benefit from and that I highly invite everyone who knows how to do it to share with, especially younger generations and kids. And it's about allowing the emotions to arise and becoming an observer, so before we try to understand them, just allowing them to be there without judgment. And this is so much harder than we think, because we're so quick to judge ourselves without even noticing. You know, we will have a feeling or an emotion and we'll think, oh, this is ridiculous, Why do come on, get your act together, Like you shouldn't be feeling like this, you should be you know, we are judging ourselves for our emotions. So that's really the first step to learn to sit with our emotions and to see them like waves or like clouds in the sky, and just to allow them to be without trying to repress them, without trying to be like my heart perfectly fine, I don't care, I don't mind, this doesn't affect me, and you know. So that's the first step, to learn to let them be, let the emotions come, and that can be very, very uncomfortable, but it's a practice.

23:19 So the more you practice sitting with your emotions, the more in control you feel in a good sense, not controlling in a negative way. The more you feel like, Okay, I can handle this. I can handle this emotion because I've had it in the past. It scared me, but then I let it come and it faded again. So this is a really important point emotional investigation and learning to name emotions, to explain them. So I quite like to write it down or ask my clients to write it down as if they were trying to describe how they feel to a ten year old, you know, like to make it as clear as possible how they feel, where they feel it in their body, if it has a color or a shape, if it felt like this in the past, how long it lasted, you know, things like that. So this is an emotional investigation. Being comfortable with our emotions is a massive step towards healing and moving forwards.

24:13 And that's not easy, you know, as you say, you know, we talk about it as though it's really easy to do. But as you're working with clients, how do you help them to deal with those emotions, and particularly deal with them away from the standpoint of victimhood and from a standpoint of awareness and not feeling guilty, not allowing it to affect us so greatly? How do you help people or clients to get to that point where they are aware and yet it's not affecting them in that deeply negative way. Well, it is a process. And the first step, it sounds simple, but it's not, is to name the emotions without any you know, judgment, any thought about it, any action towards the emotion. But you just name the emotion.

25:04 So the better your vocabulary of our emotions, the better your emotional intelligence as well. So I will give them a long list of words and invite them to explore these words and then to name their emotions several times throughout the day. This is the first step, and this will build awareness because very often we're just in that annual vision and we just go through life. We do do, do, do, but we don't take time to acknowledge what's going on in our emotional world. So understanding, like developing a vocabulary around emotions and naming them, that's the first step. That's something that people can do for a couple of weeks, and then you can dive a little bit deeper by trying to explain how it feels, where you feel it in your body, if it has a shape, of color, of sound in your mind, and then you can go back in the past and ask yourself how I felt like this before, how did it start, what trigger did, how did it end, how did I feel better afterwards?

26:01 To just really get familiar with emotions, to just sit with them, because they're not as scary as they seem. Aren't an important point as well, they're not us. They're not our personality. So it's not because we have certain emotions that we should label our personality according to these emotions. Emotions are clouds in the sky. We are the weather. You know, we are the sky. Emotions are the weather. We are the sky. So we don't change, but the emotions pass well. And how often do you find that as you go back and work with someone reframing those emotions. And I think you hit on such a good point before I get into this other one, the fact that emotions are not us. And I think that's so important to understand that we we have perceptions, and like anyone else, we can stand in the corner with someone else see an accident and their perception of what happened can be entirely different than our perception. And so emotions are based on perceptions of what occurred and oftentimes no question about it. When, particularly if we're victims of abuse of some sort, you know that becomes an issue. But so often when we do that, we become the victim. We think there's something wrong with us, rather than recognizing as we go back and perhaps reframing those that, Okay, if this happened, let's look at what really happened. I remember a client that I worked with, and as we went back on a

27:32 certain issue into his early childhood, we discovered his experience in school that was just so unfortunate from a teacher. But as we reframed that from being his challenge to the fact that this teacher was just quite frankly, an idiot, and once he understood that, it changed the whole dimension of that. So do you find that how do you help people to reframe those emotions and help them to understand that, you know, even the serious, deep, deep ones, if we can reframe that different out look, it can make such a difference. It does. You're right, perception is everything, and I heard a neuroscientist say the other day that at the end of the day, everything is inside, you know, our perception of the world, our emotions, the way we see things, the way we judge things. It all comes from inside, which also means that we have the power to influence that, to change that, and with the with the people I work with. Obviously, grief is it is quite a big deal.

28:40 So we approach it like a big wound. You know, first you need to take care of the wound, and then at some point it will heal and it will leave a scar, and that scar will still be tender. Some things will. You know, if you poke a scar it can be more painful and if you poke the skin that is next to it. So it's really a slow process where we're also trying not to put pressure because a lot of people talk about, you know, everything that happens for a reason, and these are the last things you want to say to someone who is grieving. There is no there is no reason for someone dying, there's no lesson to be learned, there's no you know what I mean. But there can be meaning coming out of it. But this is down to us if we find meaning. But it's not an obligation. But that's the process to learn to live with it and not to you know, try to leave the grief behind. There's a beautiful quote by Christopher Walken who says that losing someone is inevitable and it will leave a big hole, you know, in our hearts, and that's the good news and the bad news because it also means they will also be part of us. And he says, it's like badly breaking an ankle, and you will always have that limb, but you'll still be dancing. At some point you'll be dancing again, and you will dance with a limp, but that limb will give you your performance, the depth and the character.

30:00 So's it's just trusting that process that it can you know that life can can still be happy and that we can carry joy and sadness, we can carry love and lost. They work hand in hand. And also to kind of normalize the conversation about it, because it's just something that will happen to everybody. And I think if we open up the conversation about grief a little more, people will be a little less shocked when it happens, because it's almost as if, you know, death doesn't happen. We don't want to see it, we don't want to hear it, we don't want to talk about it. We're very uncomfortable when someone is grieving. The person grieving is uncomfortable around those you know who don't quite know what to say. So normalizing the conversation is already a really really big step towards that well.

30:45 And I like what you said about that list of emotions and identifying them. But you also talk about journaling. You didn't mention it, but I would assume that you probably have them write those emotions down and so forth. What have you found are some of the steps You've got journaling, You've got meditation. Are there other things that people can use as a tool to help them really ultimately and again not necessarily overcome, but be able to become comfortable with. Yeah. Well, there are a few things, and they can come across as surprising, But the first one really is to tend to the body. You know, when the mind and the heart are too heavy, we always have our body to come home to. And it's simple things. These are things I applied to myself. They sound boring, but if you tick the boxes day in, day out, it will slowly make a difference. Morning, daylight, Proper nutrition and hydration.

31:46 G we've completely disrupts the digestive system and the hunger and satiret tiques. So eating small meals of whole foods is quite often people just you know, snack something quickly. So proper hydration, proper food, morning, daylight, mindfulness in whatever you know, whatever that means for the people sleep, So sleep is also disrupted. But trying to have a bedtime routine, you know something the brain loves a routine. The routine is very soothing. And then really being picky with the people you surround yourself with, because sometimes, specially in grief, somehow the people that are closest to you end up, you know, sometimes hurting you without meaning it. And then other people that you thought were meaningless in your life end up being just amazing and comforting. So really picking a few people, two or three people that bring you comfort and surrounding yourself with those, so tending to the body, being selective with the people you surround yourself with. And then one last thing that I find very helpful is to schedule grief. So that sounds a bit surprising, but you know, grief hits you during the day in waves.

32:56 Triggers can be everywhere, and it can be scary. I found that for myself that there's so many things I stopped doing because I was too scared of grief triggers. I lost my dad at seven and my brother at seventeen, so I have no support whatsoever, and it's a very young age to handle such strong emotions. So I stopped going to the movies, I stopped reading novels. I didn't want to go to cafes or restaurants anymore because there could be a song, there could be something triggering my grief, and this has isolated me a lot, and later on, when my older brother died, it has also made me very angry because I felt like these grief triggers had kept me from fully enjoying or being more mindful during the time I still had with him. So I say that alert It sounds shocking, but you know what grief taught me is that people die, and people die and people die. So if we don't work, if we don't attend to the wound that is grief, we're going to miss out on life that is happening right here around us.

33:55 So to have a little bit more control over these grief tricks is I started to schedule grief to really plan. I could date night, really okay, tonight, I'm going to listen to some music, I'm going to watch to look at pictures, I'm going to cry my eyes out. I'm going to write everything, like pour my heart out on a piece of paper. And this was a frame that felt a bit more manageable because when the grief triggers would hit me during the day, I could tell myself, no, not now, not now, now is not the right moment. Tonight, we'll get to that. So not pushing it away, not avoiding it, but scheduling time again, having that routine that is also very soothing for the nervous system.

34:36 And how do you help someone to not be so impatient about overcoming grief or having people around you that are impatient about your overcoming grief. How do you help them to understand that it takes time and be okay with that and recognize it. For some people, know it can happen fairly quickly, but for other people it may take quite a while. How do you help people understand that and to take control of that in their own lives. Yeah, So one of the ways of reaching that point is really the emotional investigation. You know, the more you are aware of your emotions, the more compassion you're built as well towards yourself, and the more compassionate you are towards yourself, the more time you will give yourself to go through that healing process, the less tendency you will have to want to rush through it. So that emotional intelligence, that development of the vocabulary about emotions and the acknowledgment of the emotions helps a lot towards that self compassion that is so important in grief, so important.

35:39 Well, and you know you shared your story which was amazing. Any other stories you can share of clients who really experience this level of grief that you were able to help and ultimately how did they finally overcome it and maybe even how long did it take them? Any stories you can share, yeah. Well I have many, many stories, and there are also precious to me. I always feel very so honored that people share their stories with me, because they're really I mean, you know, when you think you've heard it all and there comes another one and you're like, wow, oh my god, what people go through. You know, like we were saying at the beginning, when you ask people about their story, what you get to hear is just incredible, Like the amount of suffering and love you know, there is in each and every one of us. So yeah, an example for example, For example, recently, I had a client in her late thirties who's died past within a few months of a terminal illness. And she was a single child and her dad was her world. And she's married with two children, and she struggled because she was so sad that she had the feeling she couldn't enjoy the blessings she had in her life, a wonderful husband, two healthy children, and she was constantly scared that they might die too, and she was very hopeless, very sad, very harsh on herself for having these feelings. She felt that she was being a bad mom and a bad wife for not being able to cherish these moments with her family more.

37:06 And so we did work through that firm about three months, and we worked a lot on self compassion, you know, like all the other stuff we work on in grief, but a lot on self compassion and that understanding that the way she feels is normal, there's nothing wrong with her, And just to work on the relationship with her dad with journaling, writing him letters, and at the end of our sessions together, she said, I feel hopeful again. I never thought I would feel hope again. And that was that was beautiful. Wow. Wow. Yes, So it's not that she you know, it's not that she wasn't sad anymore, that she wasn't grieving anymore, but hope came back in her life. So, if you had one special message that you wanted to share with the folks that are listening today, what would that be.

37:55 Well, grief feels very isolating, but it is a universal experience. So I would recommend anyone grieving to open up and talk, talk to friends, talk to a therapist, talk to a group, but to really share their experience of grief and trust that in time the wound will heal in its own way and meaning will come out of it. But to really not step back and socially isolate yourself. Go out there and share your grief because most people will have experienced it too and will be very understanding and welcoming. Oh wonderful. So, Sylvia, how do people find you your website? Number one? And as you say, there are videos and all these things that you're offering at a very reasonable price from what you say. And then also how can they get you to help them on a one to one basis? So how do they find you?

38:48 Yeah, well it's very simple. On my website, which is my name, Sylvia Wolfer dot com, you'll find all the necessary information to get in touch and to have access to the free resources and the privates essions as well. Wonderful. Any other thoughts you want to share with your audience. Well, I'm really grateful doctor being on this show today with you, because I think talking about grief should be normalized, like I said earlier, and I want to show that life can still be happy and joyful and meaningful even with a lot with a lot of grief. Wonderful, Sylvia, thank you, so. Much, Thank you so much, thank you so much. Conversation and you've had such great ideas and folks, I hope this is making a difference for some of you that are listening to this, so I hope you'll join us again soon. This is doctor Doug saying I'm a stay.

39:37 Thank you,